This was not a good week for John Allen, the elected sheriff of Bernalillo County, New Mexico. "I have never been betrayed like this in my life, and I'm pretty frickin' pissed off right now," he announced at a press conference on Thursday, striking the lectern for emphasis. "I am very angry right now."
Why is Allen so angry? On Monday, Undersheriff Johann Jareno, whom Allen described as "my right-hand man" at the Bernalillo County Sheriff's Office (BCSO), resigned at Allen's request after he was implicated in a long-running, far-reaching police bribery scheme involving employees of three law enforcement agencies who took payoffs in exchange for making DWI cases disappear. The next day, Deputy Jeff Hammerel, whom Allen had placed on administrative leave a month ago after learning that the FBI was investigating him, pleaded guilty to federal bribery and extortion charges.
Hammerel admitted to conspiring with Albuquerque defense attorney Thomas Clear, his paralegal, and "a supervisory BCSO deputy" (an apparent reference to Jareno) to help Clear's clients avoid prosecution and keep their driver's licenses. In exchange for cash payments, Hammerel would refrain from filing DWI charges or deliberately miss hearings, pretrial interviews, or trials, allowing Clear to seek dismissals based on the arresting officer's absence. That scheme, which also involved the New Mexico State Police and nearly every officer assigned to the Albuquerque Police Department (APD) unit charged with apprehending drunk drivers, began in the 1990s and continued through 2023.
