Database Debacle

When Third Judicial District Attorney Susana Martinez wanted information on a man who visited the Doña Ana County office and offered her a cream puff—"I am telling myself it is POISONED," wrote an office manager who talked to the man­—Martinez looked to one person to conduct the research: Aaron "Kip" Scarborough, an investigator in her office. "I'm on it!!" he wrote to Martinez via email.

Scarborough's role as an investigator for then-prosecutor Martinez and as a security person for Martinez' 2010 gubernatorial bid is coming under scrutiny following SFR's publication of an allegation by a campaign staffer that Martinez asked her to send to Scarborough a photo of a license plate from a vehicle sporting an anti-Martinez bumper sticker. He replied that he'd find out to whom the vehicle belonged.

It's not clear how he did that, but to accomplish that task, someone would have had to access confidential motor vehicle data or information stored in criminal databases, like the FBI's National Crime Information Center.

On Oct. 27, The Washington Free Beacon quoted Regina Chacon, chief of the Department of Public Safety's law enforcement records bureau, saying Scarborough "never had access to such records." Chacon has not returned repeated requests for comment from SFR, but data obtained months ago shows that Scarborough was not a registered user of the NCIC database.

Across the nation, abuse of the NCIC database has often occurred by law enforcement officers using a colleague's login and password information on the database—or by running an NCIC check through a colleague.

Email traffic shows that Scarborough (pictured second from left) played a big role in the Third Judicial District Attorney's Office in running background checks, potentially employing a number of databases, like the state's case management system, Accurint, or NCIC. "All backgrounds come to me," he replied to one person asking about a background check on a volunteer.

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