N.M. City Sued Over Ex-Police Officer's Actions

July 8, 2013
The City of Santa Fe denies that it ever corroborated complaints that former Sgt. Michael Eiskant was stalking or harassing women he encountered while working as a police officer.

The city of Santa Fe has denied claims made by six women in a federal lawsuit against a former police officer who was convicted last year of harassing, stalking and attempting to imprison female victims.

The city's response to a federal lawsuit filed by the women late last year also denies that the city ever corroborated complaints that former Santa Fe Police Sgt. Michael Eiskant was stalking or harassing women he encountered while working as a police officer. Mostly, the response states that the city is without sufficient information to respond to the women's claims against Eiskant and therefore denies them.

Eiskant's attorney, James Sullivan, did not return calls seeking comment.

The federal lawsuit also says that the fact that Eiskant was charged and convicted in a case brought by the state Attorney General's Office in 2012 raises questions about whether the city had adequately investigated the several complaints against the officer over the years or had taken sufficient action to deal with the allegations against him.

Eiskant retired, with full benefits, before a police internal affairs investigation begun in 2011 could be completed.

The women's lawsuit maintains that Ray Rael, police chief since March 2011, had "ratified" Eiskant's behavior by failing to discipline him.

Rael has stated previously that the allegations in the suit are inaccurate. He said in a recent interview that he has "absolute confidence" in his department's internal affairs division to investigate complaints against officers.

The women's lawsuit begins with a list of complaints that various people, not all of them the plaintiffs, had made against Eiskant during his tenure with the police department from 1999 to 2012. They ranged from simple assault to sexual assault of a police informant.

The city's response, filed May 29, states that the vast majority of the complaints filed against Eiskant were determined to be unfounded or resulted in Eiskant's exoneration following full investigations.

Disturbing behavior

Cammie Nichols, the attorney for the plaintiffs in the case, said the response isn't surprising in this kind of civil suit, where defendants often deny everything except the most basic facts in a dispute. But she added that the claims of all of the women in the lawsuit show patterns involving Eiskant.

"We found the nature of their recitations, their stories about what happened, to be very consistent with one another," she said. "There seemed to be a compelling pattern here of very disturbing behavior."

City attorney Geno Zamora said he couldn't comment directly on the allegations in the women's lawsuit, but he said that the city respects the plaintiffs.

"Through this lawsuit we will defend the policies and procedures (of the city) to demonstrate that the officers were trained and held to appropriate standards," he said.

In one high-profile case that became public in 2005, Eiskant was accused by a female police informant of sexually assaulting her on camera at a hotel and trying to get her to sign a contract to do pornographic videos, according to New Mexico State Police reports. The woman said she first met Eiskant when he pulled her over for a tail-light violation.

Reports of the investigation state that authorities said the woman's allegations could not be substantiated and the District Attorney's Office, under the administration of Henry Valdez, declined to prosecute, citing a lack of evidence. According to a State Police investigative file, the woman refused to submit to a sexual assault examination and no witnesses backed up her allegations.

Eiskant denied any criminal wrongdoing, but acknowledged some inappropriate behavior. The officer told State Police the woman propositioned him for sex. He said he became aroused during the encounter, but he denied touching her.

The city's response to the federal lawsuit denies these particular sexual assault allegations, saying that following a full investigation of the complaint the allegations were "not sustained."

Two suspensions

Eiskant was suspended twice, once in 2005 for five weeks by a previous chief and in 2007, for another month, by the state Law Enforcement Academy Board.

He retired from the Santa Fe Police Department early in 2012 and in April entered into a pre-indictment plea of no contest with the New Mexico Attorney General on charges that stemmed from his behavior with women during traffic stops. He was accused of harassment, stalking and attempted kidnapping, as well as conducting unauthorized computer searches of two people, including one woman, through a law enforcement database.

That same case also charged Eiskant with larceny of $250 or less for taking marijuana away from a man.

Eiskant pleaded no contest to the charges in April 2012 and was sentenced to probation and required to give up his law enforcement license.

The women who brought the federal lawsuit include two former Santa Fe police officers, a fill-in judge and the wife of a State Police officer. They are Rebecca Archuleta, Shannon Brady, Sonya Carrasco-Trujillo, Tricia McFaul, Terrie Montoya and Olga Sanchez. The suit seeks unspecified damages for civil rights violations, violations of the whistleblower protection act and other claims.

The city's response denies a number of specific allegations, such as those made by Archuleta, who worked in the city prosecutor's office in 2007 and 2008. She complained that Eiskant and other officers sexually harassed her many times but when she complained to Rael, who was then the compliance officer for the city Human Resources office, she was told he could fire her if she did not cooperate. Eiskant allegedly went on to harass her through text messages although she never gave him her cellphone number. The city denies that Archuleta reported this harassment and that she was threatened with firing.

The city response also states that the city has no information on an allegation brought by McFaul, who said Eiskant drove past her slowly in a parking lot, ran her license plate and was later seen driving near her home. The city response acknowledges that a complaint was filed in this case, but it does not say what the outcome of that complaint was.

Rael said there is "no formal log" of requests officers make to a police or crime database, such as when they run a license plate on a vehicle to determine ownership. Rael said the Department of Public Safety has the ability to check on officer requests for such information, but the records are not kept by the police department. He said database searches are "time consuming" and not done arbitrarily.

"Generally, there has to be a reason and a request," Rael said.

Another allegation by Sanchez states that Eiskant pulled her over, yelled at her and began videotaping her with a camera as she walked to her car. The suit alleges he drove slowly behind her with the camera pointed at her until she got in the car.

Sanchez complained to two department officers, who assured her Eiskant would leave her alone; however, she saw him following her several more times .

The city response acknowledges that Sanchez filed a complaint and states that, following an investigation of the original 2003 incident, it was determined that the complaint was based on Sanchez receiving a traffic citation from Eiskant. The city's court filing states that Eiskant was not harassing Sanchez, was not acting inappropriately and that the complaint should be removed from his file.

Copyright 2013 - Albuquerque Journal, N.M.

McClatchy-Tribune News Service

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