The New Mexico Real Estate Commission has ordered the suspension of local real estate agent and broker Jason Valentine for his involvement in allegedly passing along a fraudulent document.

According to official notification from the Commission, Valentine also faces some hefty fines.

According to records obtained by the Sun, Valentine gave a fraudulent document to a fellow real estate agent for the pre-qualification of a homebuyer. The letter was issued from the Bank of Colorado Mortgage Division on Nov. 13, 2013.

The amount of the pre-qualification was for $399,000.

James Hallinan, who serves as the communications director for the New Mexico Attorney General’s Office, spoke to...

The McKinley County Board of Commissioners voted Jan. 9 to restrict operating hours of liquor retail sales in the county.

The ordinance will restrict hours of sale to 10 am from Monday through Saturday going forward.  Currently, liquor is sold in some stores in the county as early as 7 am.

The action taken is the first reading of the proposed ordinance.  It now passes to the Jan. 23 commission meeting for adoption.

The ordinance cites the New Mexico Liquor Control Act, which gives counties a local option to restrict hours of sale of alcoholic beverages.

Commission Chair Genevieve Jackson, after being elected as the new chairperson, asked for public comment on the action.  No...

McKinley in Top 5 in NM unemployment, still

New Mexico’s seasonally adjusted unemployment rate was 6.1 percent in November 2017, unchanged from October but down from 6.7 percent in November 2016.

The unemployment rate in McKinley County the past November was 8.2 percent. The unemployment rate in October was 8.5 percent. In Cibola County, which is about a 55-minute drive from McKinley, the unemployment rate was 7.4 percent in November. Cibola’s October unemployment rate was 7.6 percent.

“This is holiday hiring picking up a little,” Tracy Shaleen, an economist with the New Mexico Department of Work Force Solutions, said. “This same scenario is relevant in Cibola...

ALBUQUERQUE – Jothonnie Yazzie, 29, of Rocksprings, N.M., pleaded guilty on Jan. 8 in federal court in Albuquerque, N.M., to an indictment charging him possessing child pornography.  Yazzie entered the guilty plea under a plea agreement recommending a sentence within the range of 37 to 63 months in prison followed by ten years of supervised release.  He also will be required to register as a sex offender after he completes his prison sentence.

The FBI and McKinley County Sheriff’s Office arrested Yazzie on Dec. 20, 2016, on the indictment, which was filed on Dec. 7, 2016, and charged him with possessing visual depictions of minors engaged in sexually explicit conduct.  According...