Another blow for NM border town with dicey past

[March 12, 2011]  COLUMBUS, N.M. (AP) -- Two years ago, when Angelo Vega took over the Columbus police force, he vowed to push back forcefully against the dusty New Mexico border town's rough recent past: allegations of rampant drug and human smuggling, an economy awash in narcotics cash from Mexico, and a revolving-door department that had been led by six police chiefs in three years.

"This is a new day for Columbus," Vega told The Associated Press, vowing at the time that all crooks would now have to face justice and fear jail time.

On Tuesday, Vega himself is due in court to answer to federal charges that he took part in a scheme to illegally buy guns in the U.S. and send them to Mexico. Mayor Eddie Espinoza, town Trustee Blas Gutierrez and eight others were accused of firearms and smuggling charges in the 84-count indictment.

The defendants, who allegedly bought roughly 200 firearms over a 14-month period from Chaparral Guns in Chaparral, are accused of falsely claiming they were buying the weapons for themselves when they were really acting as straw purchasers and buying them on behalf of others.

Martha Skinner, a former Columbus mayor, said Friday that such a gun scheme could have put the whole village at risk.

"These people swore to uphold the law and to take care of us," said Skinner, who served as mayor from 2002 to 2006, when Espinoza defeated her. "How do they know the crazy folks in Mexico aren't going to come shoot up the place because they didn't take them enough guns?"

Ranches and farms are the largest legitimate employers in Columbus, a town of some 1,800 residents which may be best known as the site of an incursion by Pancho Villa's army in 1916. The town plans to commemorate the anniversary of that raid Saturday, and Skinner said her six-bedroom bed-and-breakfast is full for the event even though people these days tend to shy away from border communities because of violence in nearby Mexico.

Glenda Sanchez, 43, who organized the Pancho Villa festival, known as Cabalgata, was surprised by the allegations but generally supportive of the mayor, whom she praised for helping to develop the village's economy.

"We all have our defects," Sanchez said, then added, in Spanish, a saying that means if you look closely enough, you can find that everyone has a skeleton in his closet.

Mike Oloughlen, 63, also was reluctant to discuss the scandal, saying he'd rather talk about a new library exhibit -- photos donated by Pancho Villa's great-grandson -- than dwell on the negative.

"I've been here 20 years and there's always been corruption in the government," Oloughlen said. "Just this time someone got caught."

Border state gun shops are a big source of weapons smuggling into Mexico, but until this week there had been little overt evidence of that problem in Columbus. Luna County Sheriff Raymond Cobos said there'd been rumors of guns in town, and members of his force began to wonder when deputies stopped Vega twice for speeding in his unmarked vehicle at night.

But no gun-related arrests had been made, until the indictments Thursday.

Columbus, a collection of largely one-story buildings and trailer homes, sits just north of Palomas, Mexico, a town that has seen increasing violence as drug cartels wage war against one another, the Mexican Army and police. Dozens of people have been killed or disappeared; businesses have shut down as tourism and the flow of immigrants illegally crossing the U.S.

In 2008, Mayor Espinoza made news when he told authorities that he visited Palomas to see a dentist -- and claimed he had his root canal interrupted by two pistol-toting men came in demanding money.

"They're getting brazen down there," Espinoza told the Deming Headlight newspaper after the incident. "I didn't have no fear about going to Palomas, before. Now, I do."

Following Thursday's arrests, Cobos has ramped up patrols around Columbus to help protect the village. He also has barred the remaining Columbus officers from using the sheriff's department frequency to call central dispatch, saying he didn't know how far problems extend. State police are allowing Columbus officers to use the Las Cruces state police dispatch office.

William "Bud" Canfield, a Columbus village trustee, said he and other local leaders would deliberate on how to recover from this week's "sad" turn of events.

"Many are grieving for that lost innocence. No decisions are being made until we have taken time to analyze the best course of action for our village. Rest assured that our village will not only survive but thrive again," he said.

The investigation began after a Border Patrol agent in the area discovered what U.S. Attorney Kenneth Gonzales called "an inordinate number" of firearms in a vehicle. The Border Patrol has declined to discuss the investigation.

Gonzales said federal agents involved in the yearlong probe seized firearms -- even at the risk of jeopardizing the probe -- to keep firearms from reaching Mexico. Twelve weapons found in Mexico and traced to the defendants got through in the investigation's early stages, Gonzales said.

"It's hard to know whether, in fact, we got them all," but firearms that did end up in Mexico got in "because of the ongoing criminal activity," and not because investigators let them through, he said.

[Associated Press; By JUAN CARLOS LLORCA and SUE MAJOR HOLMES]

Holmes reported from Albuquerque, N.M.

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