By Milan Simonich
Alamogordo Daily News
SANTA FE, N.M. — Four employees at the state prison in Los Lunas have been arrested at least twice on suspicion of drunken driving.
Executives of the New Mexico Corrections Department fired one of them, officer Rudy Sais.
The other three continue to work at the prison, leading Sais to contend in a state Supreme Court case that the department is guilty of a double standard.
Sais, 24, sued the state to get his job back. He won in district court and in the New Mexico Court of Appeals.
But the Corrections Department has appealed again, keeping him off the payroll at least until the state’s highest court rules on whether the prison system was arbitrary in disciplining officers accused of taking the wheel while intoxicated.
The department in June 2005 established a policy to punish prison employees arrested on suspicion of drunken driving. Its general counsel said in his brief that drunken driving was epidemic in New Mexico, prompting the department to take a stand against it.
A first arrest for drunken driving would bring a prison worker a suspension. If the employee was arrested a second time, he would be fired.
But the department admitted in its own brief to the Supreme Court that the policy was not enforced consistently. Still, the department attorney says Sais’ dismissal was justified based on his behavior.
Sais counters that he was never convicted of any crime for which the department fired him. Both drunken-driving charges that led to his termination were dismissed by state courts.
The department hired Sais in April 2006 as a correctional officer. He made it through his probationary period with satisfactory evaluations, then got into trouble.
Police arrested him on suspicion of drunken driving in November 2006, bringing him a seven-day suspension from his job. The department attorney said Sais admitted drinking 17 beers and had a blood-alcohol level of .21, nearly three times higher than the legal limit for drivers.
Police again arrested Sais for drunken driving in March 2008. His blood-alcohol level that time was .16, according to the Corrections Department.
The state then fired him.
Sais has built his case around uneven treatment, saying he was terminated but other employees arrested for the same crimes survived with suspensions or went undetected.
His lawyer, Paul Melendres, said the Corrections Department retained Officer Raymond DeLaCruz, who testified at a hearing that he was arrested for drunken driving in August 2006 and again in September 2007.
The department attorney, James Brewster, said DeLaCruz was not fired because one of his arrests occurred while prison executives were considering a revision of the drunken-driving policy.
Lupe Martinez, who took over as secretary of corrections this year, declined to talk about the policy or the rash of drunken-driving cases involving Los Lunas prison workers.
But Melendres said the department staff altered punishments for offending employees, depending on a worker’s rank or connections.
In DeLaCruz’s case, “Somebody pulled the strings for him,” Melendres said.
Worse still, the department’s executives are trying to cover up the fact that drunken-driving punishments were enforced in some cases but ignored in others, he said.
In his brief, Melendres also pointed to more favorable treatment for two other employees at the Los Lunas prison.
One of them, Capt. Armando Rel, had four arrests for drunken driving, according to state court records. They included one arrest in August 2006 and another in December 2007.
But throughout Sais’ appeals, department executives claimed not to know of Rel’s arrests, which occurred in Deming.
Another prison employee had two drunken-driving arrests, but one of hers occurred before the department policy was implemented. Still, Melendres said, the policy called for termination of an employee arrested twice, regardless of when the drunken-driving cases occurred.
Another element of Sais’ argument is that he was never convicted of the crimes for which the state fired him. Courts in Belen and Los Lunas dismissed both drunken-driving cases against him.
Sais had a high-profile defense lawyer.
Michael S. Sanchez, majority leader of the state Senate, represented Sais both times, according to court records.
Sais, though, did not learn from experience.
Police arrested him for a third time on suspicion of drunken driving in 2009. He pleaded no contest last year, putting a conviction on his record. Sanchez did not represent him in that case.
His third arrest was not part of the Correction Department’s case against him, as he was not an employee when it happened.
The Supreme Court will hear oral arguments in Sais’ case in September.
He is doing odd jobs as he waits for the appeals to conclude, Melendres said. Sais’ hope is to win in the Supreme Court and then reclaim his job as a corrections officer.
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