Sinuses or Pipes Plugged? Call the Plumber.

The Wire and the Press

Here you have the tale of The Plumber’s Mansion, a helluva story. Why, in search of headlines and glory, the excellent local weekly posts, publishes, and prints not only photos of the “drug ring” but also a libelous photo of a passerby. Now Taos itself, the once and future “Soul of the Southwest, sinks into the morass of melodrama. Folks are asking: Why didn’t The Taos News take the time to publish the names under the mug shots? Then the editor could have avoided publishing a photo on the front page, reportedly, of a man jailed on a pedestrian DWI charge, a man who was no part of the so-called “drug ring.”

But the editor and reporters forgot to check the facts and libeled a local family, as they did me once while printing lies uttered by a notorious and preposterous local bail bondsman. And so The Taos News will blame their sources at the County for not double-checking their own stories. One must always ask in El Norte, is it conspiracy or incompetence? Eh Joan? You once posted on a blog (I have a copy) that you would not print libelous statements or, one assumes, images. But you do.

How can a realtor sell the Taos dream to a second homer or how can a marketing agent appeal to tourists when The Taos News prints devilish and stereotypical photos and writes stories that circle and imply but refuse to cross the bridge that “connects” one and all to “the connect.”

News reports say the Plumber has been under surveillance since 2003 and he is described as a target, according to a DOJ press release or as an agent of “an organization that mistakenly thought it could unnoticed in one of our smaller communities.” Unnoticed? Everyone has been talking for years about the lavish Plumber’s Mansion, alleged helicopter deliveries (plumbing parts?), and the obvious connections to Town Hall as well as the connections to local businesses.

Besides, we’re told, that the Plumber was out on bond Thursday and working his wrenches on the pipes at a local restaurant even as the excellent local published its mug shots and circular but empty stories.

Business as usual?

Didn’t any of these alleged conspirators and reporters ever watch The Wire? The award winning HBO drama depicts the rather complicated relationships of cops, drug gangs, politicos, the press, and schools in a rather complex view of Baltimore. Taos is far easier to decipher if more neglected by the local media. Everyone in Taos knows everyone’s business. What privacy? And who are the informers? Overcharged plumbing customers? Disgruntled street dealers? Envidia-ridden competitors? Has the street price of cocaine gone up or down since the ring was busted?

On Friday night as I studied the “UNM Taos Commencement Program 2014” at the Sagebrush Convention Center, I noted the name of a student who received an “Associate of Arts in Pre-Business Administration.” The student graduated with honors. In The Wire, Stringer Bell, Avon Barksdale’s partner, the man who made millions selling cocaine to residents of the city’s low-income housing projects, attended community college classes in order to study the economics of “supply and demand.”

I pointed the coincidence out to a fellow member of The Chicano Chamber but lamented the passing of Juma, the Chicano Barber, who turned me on to The Wire. We would have had a good laugh about “life imitating art” in Taos. The first and last names listed in the program were identical to the Plumber’s but I don’t know about the middle initial. Was he the older or the younger plumber?

Stringer Bell of The Wire used a “copy center” as front but laundered cash through real estate investments with the help of local politicos. And so the feds imply they will seize the assets of the kingpin in their May 15, 2014 news release. But how far will they follow the fungible money trail?

Despite the Snowden headlines and warnings from The Wire that suggest the feds listen to or read your every communication, our very own Plumber, too, forgot the caveat: stay off the phones. Course the local DA doesn’t watch The Wire when it comes to issuing subpoenas, omitting to show a judge or grand jury the probable cause statement and sworn affidavit that state the need for a Wire to catch the Ma Barker Gang of Bandidos at the Coop. But it sounds like the feds and cops got this one right when they went to a local judge before coming down on the Plumber’s gang.

Ramifications

If the DA can’t convict the alleged culprits involved in a daylight robbery of the local Coop, due to a bungled prosecution, why should we assume the DA is capable of convicting a man accused, so far, of merely violating tax laws, which prosecution requires fairly complex forensic accounting skills?

It’s Motorcycle Memorial weekend at Red River and some of us remember how the DA passed on prosecuting the perp (s) involved in a vehicular homicide incident, when two bikers died and their two partners were mangled for life ten years ago. We also remember the unsolved (?) and un-prosecuted murders in Questa, when a man and his little girl were shot, execution style, about 16 years ago. Folks from Questa used tell me, if you’re going to commit a murder and get away with it, Questa is the place. The DA is from Questa.

Many of the so-called members of the “drug ring,” according to names listed separately from mug shots, refer to Mexican nationals. There are a few embarrassed locals with connections to the office of the DA, a water and sanitation district, businesses in Taos, and, of course, the Town of Taos.

Then there’s the man who was merely passing through jail on an unrelated matter and now he stands, not accused, but of being libeled in the news.

Ever since the editor of The Taos News endorsed the Plumber’s friends, the incumbents at Town Hall, who lost the municipal election big-time, the local weekly has confirmed its central role in the comic melodrama, aka Southwestern Exposure. If the town shrink, Robert Silver, put the Editor and the DA on the couch, along with the board of HCH,  Baron could do a helluva cartoon.