{"id":27097,"date":"2024-02-03T07:39:24","date_gmt":"2024-02-03T12:39:24","guid":{"rendered":"https:\/\/worldjusticenews.com\/news\/?p=27097"},"modified":"2024-02-03T07:39:24","modified_gmt":"2024-02-03T12:39:24","slug":"new-mexico-failed-election-candidate-paid-me-to-shoot-officials-gunman-says","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/worldjusticenews.com\/news\/2024\/02\/03\/new-mexico-failed-election-candidate-paid-me-to-shoot-officials-gunman-says\/","title":{"rendered":"New Mexico: Failed election candidate paid me to shoot officials, gunman says"},"content":{"rendered":"
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A man in the US state of New Mexico has pleaded guilty to helping a defeated Republican candidate carry out drive-by shootings at the home of Democrats.<\/b><\/p>\n<\/div>\n<\/div>\n

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The defendant, Demetrio Trujillo, says the candidate, Solomon Pe\u00f1a, hired him after failing to win a seat in the state legislature in November 2022.<\/p>\n<\/div>\n<\/div>\n

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Over the following weeks, the residences of several Democratic officials were attacked in Albuquerque.<\/p>\n<\/div>\n<\/div>\n

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Mr Pe\u00f1a has denied the charges against him and is due to stand trial in June.<\/p>\n<\/div>\n<\/div>\n

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The case comes amid fears over a rise in political violence in the US.<\/p>\n<\/div>\n<\/div>\n

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Trujillo, 42, was arrested last month in connection with the\u00a0Albuquerque shootings<\/a>\u00a0in late 2022 and early 2023.<\/p>\n<\/div>\n<\/div>\n

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In a plea agreement with federal prosecutors, he admitted to five charges, including conspiracy, election interference and using a firearm.<\/p>\n<\/div>\n<\/div>\n

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In a statement, federal prosecutors said that in December 2022, Mr Pe\u00f1a paid Trujillo to shoot at the homes of three former election candidates to intimidate them.<\/p>\n<\/div>\n<\/div>\n

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In January Mr Pe\u00f1a and Trujillo carried out one of the planned shootings, the statement added. Trujillo is due to be sentenced later.<\/p>\n

\"Solomon<\/a>
Solomon Pe\u00f1a, a Trump supporter, refuses to acknowledge his election loss in 2022. Here Pe\u00f1a poses for a jail booking photograph after his arrest by the Albuquerque Police Department. (Image: Metropolitan Detention Center\/ Reuters)<\/figcaption><\/figure>\n<\/div>\n<\/div>\n
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Mr Pe\u00f1a lost the election to the state legislature by nearly 50 percentage points, but alleges that the vote was “rigged”.<\/p>\n<\/div>\n<\/div>\n

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Police say he approached the four Democrats he later targeted to pressure them to overturn the results.<\/p>\n<\/div>\n<\/div>\n

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At the time, Mr Pe\u00f1a’s Twitter account suggested he may have been inspired by former president Donald Trump’s false claims of election fraud.<\/p>\n<\/div>\n<\/div>\n

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His last message on Twitter, posted on 15 November 2022, read: “Trump just announced for 2024. I stand with him. I never conceded my [House District] race. Now researching my options.”<\/p>\n

Source: bbc.co.uk<\/a><\/p>\n<\/div>\n<\/div>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"

A man in the US state of New Mexico has pleaded guilty to helping a defeated Republican candidate carry out drive-by shootings at the home of Democrats. The defendant, Demetrio Trujillo, says the candidate, Solomon […]<\/a><\/div>\n","protected":false},"author":1,"featured_media":27098,"comment_status":"open","ping_status":"open","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"pmpro_default_level":"","footnotes":""},"categories":[2,3],"tags":[474,9819,190,3815],"class_list":{"0":"post-27097","1":"post","2":"type-post","3":"status-publish","4":"format-standard","5":"has-post-thumbnail","7":"category-news","8":"category-usa","9":"tag-albuquerque","10":"tag-election-interference","11":"tag-new-mexico","12":"tag-shootings","13":"pmpro-has-access"},"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/worldjusticenews.com\/news\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/27097","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/worldjusticenews.com\/news\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/worldjusticenews.com\/news\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/worldjusticenews.com\/news\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/1"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/worldjusticenews.com\/news\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=27097"}],"version-history":[{"count":2,"href":"https:\/\/worldjusticenews.com\/news\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/27097\/revisions"}],"predecessor-version":[{"id":27101,"href":"https:\/\/worldjusticenews.com\/news\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/27097\/revisions\/27101"}],"wp:featuredmedia":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/worldjusticenews.com\/news\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media\/27098"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/worldjusticenews.com\/news\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=27097"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/worldjusticenews.com\/news\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=27097"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/worldjusticenews.com\/news\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=27097"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}