ALBUQUERQUE, New Mexico — A federal grand jury has returned the first indictment in New Mexico's long-running DWI corruption investigation, charging former Bernalillo County Sheriff's Office deputy Paul Jessen Jr. with using his official position to further a scheme that got driving-while-intoxicated cases dismissed, the U.S. Attorney's Office for the District of New Mexico announced on Wednesday, November 4. KRQE News 13 reported the indictment was filed on Tuesday, November 3. It is the first time prosecutors in the case have taken a defendant to a grand jury for an indictment rather than proceeding on the guilty pleas that have so far defined the scandal: thirteen people, including the Albuquerque defense attorney at the centre of the alleged scheme and his paralegal, have already pleaded guilty.

Source: U.S. Attorney's Office, District of New Mexico (justice.gov)

Jessen is charged with one count of conspiracy to commit interference with commerce by extortion under color of official right. If convicted, he faces up to 20 years in prison. The U.S. Attorney's office stresses that an indictment is merely an allegation, and that Jessen is presumed innocent until proven guilty beyond a reasonable doubt in a court of law — a point this report maintains throughout: everything prosecutors say Jessen did in the DWI case is, at this stage, alleged, not proven.

How prosecutors say the scheme worked

According to court documents cited by the U.S. Attorney's office, between March 2018 and January 2024 Jessen conspired with Albuquerque DWI defense attorney Thomas J. Clear III and Clear's paralegal, Ricardo Mendez, to help DWI offenders avoid the criminal and administrative penalties attached to their arrests. The alleged method turned on a simple courtroom rule: when the arresting officer does not appear at a required criminal setting, the defense can move to have the case thrown out. In exchange for items of value, prosecutors allege, Jessen deliberately failed to appear at required criminal settings for DWI offenders who had retained Clear — knowing that his absence would allow Clear to seek dismissal of the proceedings. KRQE's reporting on the indictment describes the same pattern across the wider scandal: Albuquerque Police Department officers and Bernalillo County deputies who took bribes in order to miss court dates so that DWI charges would be dismissed.

The indictment's most striking detail is what Jessen allegedly took. Court documents allege that after Jessen expressed concerns — to a co-conspirator described as a senior Bernalillo County Sheriff's Office deputy — about accepting cash payments for his part in the scheme, he agreed to receive gifts instead. Those gifts allegedly included a Pit Boss grill and smoker, a Sharp large-screen television, and Craftsman tools and a toolbox. Prosecutors also allege that Jessen received free legal services, including representation while he was himself under investigation for tipping off DEA targets, as well as alcohol, hotel rooms and other benefits over the course of the scheme. The senior deputy who allegedly reassured him is not named in the announcement.

Thirteen guilty pleas came before this first indictment

To date, thirteen people — including Clear and Mendez — have pleaded guilty to federal charges stemming from their involvement in the conspiracy, the U.S. Attorney's office said. That sequencing matters: for nearly two years the public saw the DWI scandal only through plea agreements, in which officers and deputies admitted taking money and gifts to make cases disappear. An indictment is a different and more contested road: the government must now prove its allegations against Jessen at trial if he does not plead guilty, and his defense will be able to challenge the evidence in open court. The announcement was made by First Assistant U.S. Attorney Ryan Ellison and Justin A. Garris, Special Agent in Charge of the FBI's Albuquerque Field Office. The FBI's Albuquerque Field Office investigated the case with assistance from the Albuquerque Police Department, and the U.S. Attorney's Office for the District of New Mexico is prosecuting it.

Jessen was already convicted this year — in a second federal case

Remarkably, the DWI indictment is not Jessen's only federal case, and it is not even his first conviction. Earlier this year he was convicted of obstructing a Drug Enforcement Administration investigation and making false statements to the FBI — the very investigation during which, prosecutors say in the new indictment, Clear's office gave him free legal help. A Department of Justice Office of Inspector General release dated July 14, 2026 records that on July 10, after a five-day trial and three hours of deliberation, a New Mexico jury convicted Paul Jessen Jr., 36, of one count of conspiracy to obstruct justice, two counts of obstruction of justice and one count of making a false statement. According to evidence at that trial, Jessen and former Bernalillo County detective Kyle Linker recruited a drug trafficker to work as a confidential informant in July 2021; in November 2021, after a DEA agent told Linker the agency planned an operation near the informant's home, the targets were tipped off. When the DEA searched the informant's residence in December 2021, agents found more than 470 grams of methamphetamine, fentanyl pills and a firearm. In that case Jessen faces up to 65 years in federal prison; his sentencing, before Senior U.S. District Judge James O. Browning in Albuquerque, had not been scheduled when the OIG reported the verdict. Linker pleaded guilty to obstruction of justice and was sentenced to eight months in custody.

Source: DOJ Office of Inspector General release, July 14, 2026

What happens next

Jessen will now be arraigned on the indictment and the case will move toward either a plea or a trial in federal court in New Mexico; no court date was given in the announcement. Separately, his sentencing in the DEA-obstruction case — where he faces up to 65 years — is still to be scheduled before Judge Browning. Federal officials describe the DWI investigation as ongoing, and the fact that prosecutors have now shifted from plea agreements to a grand-jury indictment raises the possibility that more defendants who have not pleaded guilty could be charged the same way. Awaaz Punjab will follow the arraignment and any further indictments in the investigation.