By Phaedra Haywood
The Santa Fe New Mexican
SANTA FE, N.M. — A Santa Fe firefighter placed on paid leave amid an internal investigation in August resigned Friday, a city spokesperson confirmed.
Jesse Flores had worked for the city since 2006 and was named an emergency medical services captain in 2021 before being demoted in recent years. He was placed on leave Aug. 11 , spokesperson Regina Ruiz said.
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She declined to disclose why he was placed on leave but claimed it was unrelated to The New Mexican’s inquiry — that same day — into a 2024 criminal case in which Flores was accused of attempting to sell Suboxone to an undercover narcotics task force agent. Suboxone is used to treat opiate addiction and is also a heavily trafficked drug.
According to Flores, however, the disciplinary action was directly tied to the case — rather, it was due to his failure to report it to city officials.
Flores said in an interview on Tuesday the city’s disciplinary process is “very secretive,” so he wasn’t sure at first why he was being placed on leave. He resigned after he was eventually provided with paperwork notifying him the city was contemplating terminating him because he didn’t disclose the criminal case, he added. He declined to discuss the case further.
Ruiz told The New Mexican last month the city didn’t know about the case until the newspaper inquired about it. The case was resolved through the District Attorney’s Office’s Pre-Prosecution Diversion Program, which called for Flores to undergo substance abuse treatment and perform community service.
Court documents show Flores’ ex-wife, Erica Montano — an employee in the city Human Resources Department — had knowledge of the criminal case and had filed a motion asking the court to seal parts of the couple’s divorce file in August to keep details of what she alleged was a fairly recent incident from becoming public.
Flores and Montano married in 2017 and divorced in 2021, according to online court records.
Montano wrote in an Aug. 1 motion to seal the documents that Flores “struggles with various forms of addiction” that resulted in “a court proceeding based on an undercover investigation, the loss of his paramedic license, and demotion based on using his public official position.”
He had recently “participated in similar repeated behavior involving employer resources,” she alleged, and she feared “this could become public,” putting their children in “a compromised position due to his employment.”
The motion included the state District Court case number for Flores’ criminal case.
Montano declined through her attorney to comment for this story.
Ruiz declined to comment on the allegations in the motion or to directly answer questions about whether Montano had notified the city about Flores’ criminal case, noting the city “cannot comment on personnel matters.”
” Ms. Montano is a highly valued member of the HR Department staff, working as an HR Organizational Development Manager,” Ruiz wrote in an emailon Tuesday.
She initially resisted The New Mexican’s attempts to confirm Montano’s position, writing in an email the inquiry “may be slander and libelous.”
In response to questions about Flores’ employment, Ruiz wrote that city officials did a “deep dive” into issues presented in media questions related to his case and had no reason to believe he had ever reported for duty under the influence of drugs.
The city also verified its Suboxone inventory and found “none of the medication is missing or unaccounted for currently or historically,” she added.
Ruiz said the city follows a pharmacy control protocol with security measures including cameras, sign-out procedures, chain of custody, tracking measures of each substance and routine inventory.
Emergency medical technician licenses are renewed every two years, and “EMTs are background checked every four years by the State,” according to Ruiz.
“Mr. Flores’ background was checked in August 2024 by the State and it came back clear. This includes fingerprinting and documentation submitted to State Police,” she wrote.
The criminal charges against Flores — attempted distribution of a controlled substance and tampering with evidence — which arose out of an alleged incident in 2023, had already been filed in two courts by then. The Santa Fe County Sheriff’s Office initially filed the case in January 2024 in Santa Fe County Magistrate Court; they were then bound over for prosecution in state District Court in July 2024, online court records show.
Ruiz said city firefighters and emergency medical service providers undergo random and “reasonable suspicion” drug testing but said she was “looking into” whether the date and results of Flores last test could be released.
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