A note about the board: 4 Investigates has documented people connected to the DWI Deception scandal on the right side of the board. Guilty convictions are noted with red lines; people implicated but not criminally charged are connected with blue lines. People on the left side of the board have no known connection to the DWI Deception crimes. Green lines indicate a working or financial relationship. Black lines indicate connections in the judiciary but not a working or financial relationship.

THOMAS CLEAR III

The man at the center of the DWI scandal is the son of an accomplished lawyer. His father, Thomas Clear Jr., was a Navy veteran who ran for public office several times, including a bid to be the Republican candidate for New Mexico governor in 1970. Clear Jr. died in 2002, several years after Clear III says his DWI scheme began in the 1990s. Clear graduated from UNM in 1979 with a number of accolades, from his time in a fraternity to being named one of the “Outstanding Young Men of America.” Clear graduated law school in Texas before passing the New Mexico Bar exam in 1982.

Clear did not respond to 4 Investigates for this story.

THE DATA

Starting with just twelve DWI cases in 1995, Thomas Clear III quickly became a go-to metro area attorney. By 2004, Clear served around 150 clients with a dismissal rate that year of about 75 percent. 4 Investigates reviewed more than 2,700 cases over 30 years and discovered Clear had more than 1,600 cases either dismissed or acquitted at trial. 

The data showed many officers with a significant history of DWI dismissals in cases handled by Clear — far more officers than have been named by prosecutors and law enforcement agencies so far. 

METRO COURT JUDGES

Online newspaper and archival searches reveal Clear worked on at least two Metro Court judges’ retention campaigns. Judge Tommy Jewell had Clear work as his campaign manager in 1986 until an assault and battery case Clear faced came up in Jewell’s courtroom. According to an Albuquerque Tribune article, Clear resigned from the campaign and Jewell recused himself from the case.

The article also says Clear used “insider knowledge of the state’s justice system” to delay court proceedings and then use a speedy trial rule to get his own case dismissed. The case went to the Court of Appeals and was ultimately dismissed. Judge Jewell does not appear on any of Clear’s DWI cases. 

Political newspaper ads show Metro Court Judge Frank Gentry asked Clear to be a treasurer for his retention campaigns in 1998 and 2002. New Mexico’s online court record database shows Gentry heard 30 of Clear’s cases from 1995-2005, about half ending with dismissals.  

Physical records from Metro Court archives show Gentry’s signature on cases handled by Clear as late as 2006, Gentry’s last year on the bench. Gentry initially agreed to an on-camera interview with 4 Investigates but changed his mind. He described Clear as his “close friend” and said he filed a “blanket recusal” so he would not be assigned Clear’s cases. 

A public records request showed no responsive records at Metro Court for any recusal document. Gentry said he went to work with Clear after his time on the bench and recalled working next to Ricardo Mendez, Clear’s admitted right-hand man in the DWI scheme. Gentry said he had no knowledge of the DWI scheme. He told 4 Investigates that he now feels betrayed by Clear, but feels compassion for the families of Clear and Mendez. 

Joshua Kastenberg, a former trial judge who once headed the Judicial Ethics Committee for the Department of Defense, said judges with close connections to attorneys raise ethical questions. 

“I think people will have a trust in the FBI, but the FBI isn’t looking for judicial ethics issues. They’re looking for actual crimes,” Kastenberg said.

4 Investigates showed Kastenberg the political ad touting Gentry as “Our Best DWI Judge” paid for by Clear as treasurer for Gentry’s retention campaign.  

“This ad to me smacks of corruption on the part of Tom Clear, and on the part of police officers who may have voted on this at the same time, receiving money from Tom Clear to no show,” said Kastenberg. “This means, to me, that Judge Gentry should have recused himself from each and every case that Tom Clear appeared before him in.”

DONALD RODRIGUEZ

Clear fired office worker Donald Rodriguez in 2009 after a falling out. Rodriguez said Clear would use police friends to try and intimidate him, including claims that Rodriguez telephonically harassed Clear.  

Rodriguez told 4 Investigates he learned first-hand how well the attorney knew the system. He says Clear sent a criminal summons to one of Rodriguez’s former addresses, something he says Clear knew wasn’t correct because the attorney helped Rodriguez with a down payment for his new home. Never getting the criminal summons, Rodriguez said, four police officers showed up to arrest him. He spent a day and half in jail. 

Rodriguez then filed a civil lawsuit for malicious prosecution against Clear. At the same time, he sent a three-page letter to the Disciplinary Board detailing what he says he witnessed at Clear’s office. The Board told Rodriguez it couldn’t act on the complaint with a civil suit pending, but that he was free to re-file the complaint after the suit was complete. After Clear and Rodriguez settled out of court, Rodriguez did not re-file. The Disciplinary Board does not appear to have pursued the allegations in the complaint. 

COURT MONITORS:

Seeking to better understand New Mexico’s DWI problem, the state’s Department of Transportation Safety Division started a court monitoring program. Funding for the program is available through a federal grant. For the last nine years, Mothers Against Drunk Driving has held the contract in New Mexico. The most recent award came in 2022 for a four-year period. It requires court monitors to keep track of a minimum of 250 cases, around the state, from start to finish around the state. 

CLICK to view contract. 

MADD is required to document information from each case such as the judge, defendant, defense attorney and outcome. That data is then compiled and sent to NMDOT monthly. It then goes into a yearly report sent to stakeholders.   

CLICK for the reports. 

The reports document similar problems with prosecution every year. Noting problems with evidence being turned over or officers failing to appear in court. It also notes a 30%-50% dismissal rate in DWI cases across the board. 

Despite the wealth of data, it’s unclear how that information gets in front of people who can make policy decisions or potentially notice attorneys with high dismissal rates. MADD never responded to our requests for an interview. NMDOT said outside of the annual report, it’s not sure how that data is being used.  

Within MADD’s database, 4 Investigates discovered that of the attorneys monitored most often, Thomas Clear had the second-highest dismissal rate.  

Correction: A previous version of this online article stated Judge Frank Gentry “said he had knowledge of the DWI scheme.” The current article has been corrected to say “he had no knowledge of the DWI scheme.”