BLOCK JR.: I'M NOT A CRIMINAL.

Byline: DOUG MATTSON

Jerome Block Jr. said Tuesday that he doesn't welcome a criminal investigation into his political campaign expenditures. And while he has admitted filing a false report with election officials, he also insisted he didn't break the law.

With the Secretary of State's Office still weighing whether to ask the Attorney General's Office to investigate, Block, the Democratic candidate for the District 3 Public Regulation Commission seat, said in a phone interview he's convinced state officials will properly review his case.

"I take public financing law and the Voter Action Act seriously, and I don't think I violated it or committed any crime, you know," Block said. "They're going to make the right choice. They're a competent office, and they're going to make the right choice."

He wouldn't say whether he has hired a lawyer. "It's a sensitive issue," he said, adding, "I'm looking into what I need to do to protect myself."

Block was on the road Tuesday and is scheduled to appear today as a speaker at the Arizona-New Mexico Telecommunications conference at the Inn of the Mountain Gods Resort and Casino in Mescalero, N.M. PRC Member David King is also scheduled to speak.

A League of Women Voters candidate forum is also set for today in Los Alamos, but Block said he had already committed to the conference. Block's father, Jerome Block Sr., a former PRC member who now works for the Mescalero Apache Telecom Inc., is also at the conference.

"My dad works for MATI, and they haven't had business before the commission in years," Block Jr. said, "and if they were ever to have business before the PRC, I would do the right thing and if necessary recuse myself."

The PRC oversees the regulation of telecommunications, utilities, insurance and motor carriers.

Becky Shankland, the voter services chairwoman of League of Women Voters Los Alamos, said candidates were invited sometime in August. "The league is disappointed because we did make the plan for the date quite a long time go hoping everyone could come," she said.

The Secretary of State's Office has been looking into whether the younger Block broke the law since last week, when he admitted he lied about $2,500 in public campaign funds he gave to San Miguel County Clerk Paul Maez, a longtime friend and that county's top election official. The PRC candidate's financial report said the money went to Maez's band, Wyld Country, to perform at a rally in May, but it turned out the band never played. After news reports about the matter, Block refunded $2,500 to the secretary of state.

A couple days after his admission, he reported to State Police that someone broke into his house in La Puebla, rifled through papers and wrote a Hispanic slur on his office wall. Personal and campaign-related papers were stolen, he said.

Some people who posted comments on The New Mexican's Web site have suggested the Thursday break-in was an inside job that served as a distraction, something Block Jr. disputed Tuesday.

"Those comments I think are ridiculous. I don't know who would want to demark or destroy their own property and put a scare into their own family," he said. "My wife is shaken up. I have two children. ... I have shared custody of them. I don't think it's a good thing to do to your kids to stage a break-in and scare your kids."

State police spokesman Peter Olson said there's no telling who was responsible for the incident. A police report released Monday listed the case as closed after an officer found no suspects, witnesses or physical evidence such as fingerprints. "Who knows what happened? Only the people who wrote on the wall know," Olson said. "It is slightly suspicious nothing was stolen -- nothing of value."

Block Jr. said the stolen papers included "previously filed financial reports," such as candidate nominating petitions and forms involving contributions he needed to get on the primary ballot. He also said personal bank statements were taken. "Nothing that will prevent me from filing my campaign finance report in a timely and accurate manner in the middle of October," he said.

State police found the word liar and a derogatory term for Hispanic written in green crayon on the wall.

The candidate declined to say whether he had his own suspects in the case. "Any thoughts I'm going to keep to myself," he said. "No point in accusing anybody in specific."

Meanwhile, the secretary of state is still deciding whether to ask the Attorney General's Office to investigate whether the candidate broke campaign-finance laws.

"We are going to be putting something together," Secretary of State's Office spokesman James Flores sad. "As soon as we do our preliminary (investigation), we'll be meeting with our legal counsel (at the Attorney General's Office)."

"I hope it won't be too long," he added.

Attorney General Gary King, who has called the matter a "front burner" concern, couldn't be reached for comment Tuesday.

Steven Allen, executive director of Common Cause New Mexico, a nonpartisan government-reform group that pushed for passage of the law that authorized public funding of PRC candidates' campaigns, said he's so far satisfied with the secretary of state's handling of the case. He said a Secretary of State's Office official called him Monday to apprise him of the process.

Common Cause said in a recent news release that Block Jr. "apparently" violated two aspects of the act, one requiring "timely truthful reporting of expenditures of public funds" and another requiring that "public funds not used for legitimate campaign expenses be refunded to (the Secretary of State's) office at the conclusion of the primary."

The Voter Action Act says knowingly making a false statement in a report is a fourth-degree felony and requires candidates who violate the act to return all their public funding. Block has received $101,508 in public campaign funds for both the primary and general election, while his opponent, Green Party member Rick Lass, who didn't run in a primary, received $64,778. Lass plans to be at today's forum in Los Alamos.

The PRC job pays $90,000 a year. District 3 includes Santa Fe, parts of Bernalillo and Sandoval counties and north-central and northeastern New Mexico.

Contact Doug Mattson at 986-3087 or [e-mail].

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