Former officer's appeal rejected

Cops and Courts

Clovis City Manager Ray Mondragon announced Friday afternoon that the 10th U.S. Circuit Court has rejected an appeal by a former Clovis police officer.

According to the city press release, former officer Gilbert Salguero sued the city in federal district court alleging that the city breached his employment contract by terminating him in April 2001 without just cause. The district court granted the city’s motion to dismiss some of the officer’s claims and granted summary judgment to the city on the remaining clams. The circuit court judges denied Salguero’s appeal.

Mondragon’s press release stated that Salguero’s suit was filed after earlier internal appeals to the police chief, deputy chief, personnel director, and assistant city manager.

Messages left with Salguero’s relatives and with the answering service for his attorney were not immediately

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Selling a $20 rock of crack cocaine led to a Clovis woman receiving a four-year sentence in state prison, according to 9th Judicial District Attorney Brett Carter.

Carter said Judge Joe Parker sentenced Frances Haskins, 40, on charges of attempted trafficking of cocaine. The charges stem from an April 19, 2002, incident in which Haskins sold the crack cocaine to an undercover state police officer, Carter said.

Haskins said that even though she agreed to a plea bargain she didn’t make the sale and was instead visiting her brother at a hospital in Lubbock.

“I pleaded guilty because the lawyer I have now told me if I didn’t plead guilty I was facing 18 to 24 years,” Haskins said. “I signed the plea bargain for four years to prevent going to prison for longer. I’m pleading guilty to something I did not do, but I’m not going to take the risk of more jail time.”

Haskins said even though she refused to accept a plea bargain that would have required her to testify against others, she’s still accused of being a “snitch” in the community and wants it known that she refused to testify.

“I’m not the sweetest person in the world, but I am not the big-time drug dealer they are making me out to be,” Haskins said. “I’m a 40-year-old mother of four trying to make a living.”

Cops and Courts is compiled by CNJ staff writer Darrell Todd Maurina. He can be contacted at 763-6991 or:

darrell_maurina@

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