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Ivan Niño is the Administrative Support Associate of City Rep. Isabel Salcido of District 5 and is paid $71,040 to manage her office and take phone calls.
Now the 33-year-old is a candidate to replace her on City Council, since she is running for Mayor and terming out in January.
On his campaign webpage, Niño claims: “For the past 15 years, I’ve worked hard to serve the people of El Paso, starting as a deputy for the El Paso County Tax Assessor-Collector’s office.”
We found it curious that he omitted his County experience from his LinkedIn page. When we began making inquiries, we learned that he faced a criminal investigation during his term of employment.
Naturally, we filed a series of public information requests with the County and discovered the following:
1. Ivan Niño was employed by Flash Registration Title, a subcontractor of the Office of the County Tax Assessor that conducts motor vehicle title work and registrations. He was employed there from approximately 2013 through October 23, 2019.
2. In 2019, he was charged with “Deceptive Business Practice,” a Class A Misdemeanor, for overcharging for vehicle registration fees. (Case no. 20190606-01)
3. In an email of November 1, 2019, Ruben Gonzalez, the County tax Assessor-Collector, stated that Niño was denied RTS access, effectively terminating his County employment.
4. In a memorandum from Investigator Aurelio Arias to Gonzalez dated November 12, 2019, several details of the criminal complaint and investigation are revealed.
5. The case was referred to the Enforcement Division. On March 16, 2020, Arias presented the facts to Judge Carl Horkowitz, who signed an arrest warrant affidavit and set a bond of $5,000. (Warrant no. M20000248)
6. This past September 20, Max Grossman wrote to Ivan Niño for comment about the criminal investigation of his conduct and the circumstances that ended his employment with the County. Niño replied September 22, claiming he is “legally obligated to comply with an expunction order entered on August 9, 2022 by a District Court” and that he “may only state that the matter in question has been expunged.” He claimed that anyone providing information about illegal conduct on his part “is risking a potential legal violation against the court’s order as well as potentially being liable for spreading a false rumor that could be defamatory in nature.”
We can assure Mr. Niño that we are not accusing him of anything or spreading false rumors and that everything in this report is sourced from public documents that were lawfully provided.
The public may read them and decide for themselves if there is any concern about him running for City Council, potentially winning, and managing our $1.3 billion municipal budget.
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