ALBUQUERQUE, N.M. — Nearly two dozen officers are now implicated in what’s become one of our state’s biggest corruption scandals.

It involves officers from our three largest police agencies, Albuquerque police, the Bernalillo County Sheriff’s Office and New Mexico State Police, teaming up with a local defense attorney to get DWI cases dismissed for a price.

The cost of that betrayal to New Mexico is immeasurable. Officers named are now compromised, putting every single case they’re involved with in jeopardy.

For 30 years, now-convicted criminal cops admit to taking bribes to let suspected drunk drivers off the hook.

“I think it’s a question all citizens ask, ‘How could this go on since 1995 and no one from the top understands it?'” said Ahmad Assed, local defense attorney and KOB legal expert.

“Citizens were left on their own thinking maybe the streets were safe, and they’re not,” said Linda Atkinson of the DWI Resource Center.

Local defense attorney Thomas Clear III pulled the strings with more than two dozen police officers suspected of turning puppets.

“It’s a damn shame. It’s a damn shame,” said Caroline Esquivel, who lost her granddaughter to an impaired driver in 2020.

The impact goes beyond the courtroom. Even further than the 1,500 DWI cases dismissed. To officers who prosecutors contend can now no longer be trusted in court.  Now, every case they’ve touched is in danger of falling apart.

“It’s incredibly significant because what essentially happens, it could conceivably lead to multiple cases being dismissed as we’ve experienced,” Assed said.

“This is our gallery,” Esquivel said. “I come and I talk to her. I talk to her.”

Pictures are as close as Caroline Esquivel gets to her granddaughter, Justice Gutierrez-Cruz.

“Here it is. This is my favorite. She’s little.”

Memories that bring her spirit back to the home she grew up in.

“On June 27 of 2020 she was on her way to go camping when this crash happened,” Esquivel said.

It was after dark on Highway 84 in northern New Mexico when driver Cory Johnson drifted into oncoming traffic. She killed 23-year-old Justice Gutierrez-Cruz and 29-year-old Felisha Barela.

“Justice left a son behind who was seven.”

Eduardo was tucked into bed when Esquivel got a call.

“I woke my husband up and I said ‘I’m going to see about Justice because she got into an accident,’” Esquivel said. “He got up out of bed, and he drove over there, and he called to tell me she’s not coming home.”

She’s spent the last five years reliving that day.

“We said, ‘Eduardo, do you remember how we talk to you about when people drink and drive? And he says, ‘Yeah.’ I says, ‘Well, someone like that hit mama. She’s not coming home.’ He just looked at us stunned, like, what are you talking about?”

Johnson was impaired. A toxicology report shows alcohol and several medications in her system. A jury convicted her of homicide by vehicle, just two months before a news story caught Esquivel’s attention.

“I thought, ‘My God.’ We’re going to have to start from the beginning. We’re going to have to go back?”

State Police Officer Toby LaFave, who is now implicated in the DWI scandal, is the same officer who collected samples of Johnson’s blood that night. He’s just a note on the witness list. KOB legal expert Ahmad Assed said she has good reason to worry.

“There may be cases that these folks did not investigate or had a very minor role and I think those kind of cases are going to have to be dealt with on a case by case basis to determine the involvement, how much of the investigation and whether there are other facts that may be relevant to the guilt or innocence short of the testimony or the investigation,” Assed said.

With nearly two dozen officers named as unreliable witnesses, and many more lurking in the shadows of anonymity, there’s no telling how many New Mexicans will pay the price.

“How many others are going through this. Does it matter only when it hits home?”

Now, she waits, remembering the good times.

“My granddaughter is not a statistic. She’s not just a number. She’s somebody’s mother. Somebody’s daughter, sister, granddaughter, friend,” Esquivel said.

She’s hoping the bad days are finally behind them.

Esquivel raised these concerns with prosecutors more than a month ago. Prosecutors told her they were bound to disclose state police officer Toby LaFave’s status to the defense.

Johnson is awaiting her sentencing.