On Thursday, former state Rep. Joseph Sanchez (D-Alcalde) announced his candidacy for the 40th House District, presumably in the Democrat primary against disgraced porn actor Roger Montoya, who won the seat in 2020.
“I am running for this seat because I see the promise of a stronger, more vibrant New Mexico on the horizon for all of us. We struggle with our education system and lack of economic opportunities, but by listening to our communities and working together, we can turn things around,” said Joseph Sanchez. “I’m looking forward to once again serving the people of HD 40,” according to his press release.
It continues:
Joseph will advocate for common sense policies that include supporting the oil and gas industry while working with them on a reasonable transition to renewables, promoting New Mexico as a hydrogen hub, supporting the rollout of rural broadband to expand access to all of New Mexico to help attract the high-tech jobs of the future, broadening the 80-year relationship with Los Alamos National Laboratory, fighting for land grants and land grant communities, and advocating for the priorities of Indian Country.
Joseph Sanchez earned an MS and BS in Electrical Engineering from the University of New Mexico and an MBA from New Mexico State University. He currently serves as an engineering manager at Los Alamos National Laboratory, where he has helped oversee and execute over a billion dollars worth of utility and construction projects. He previously served as the CEO of the largest electric utility cooperative in the state of New Mexico. Joseph resides in his life-long home of Alcalde with his fiancé Veronica.
Sanchez would be taking on the disgraced porn actor, who the Piñon Post uncovered in 2021 to have participated in multiple adult films. He claimed to have performed the multiple sex acts in the adult films to pay his way through college in Los Angeles at the time. The Piñon Post’s reporting on this can be found here.
Sanchez is a pro-life Democrat who voted against 2019’s radical abortion up-to-birth H.B. 51.
On Saturday, it was reported that embattled Gov. Michelle Lujan Grisham, who was accused and later settled $62,500 in campaign cash for sexual assault, gave her energy secretary, James Kenney, an 8% raise, adding up to $12,480. That boosts Kenney’s salary from $156,000 to $168,480, making him the highest-paid member of Lujan Grisham’s cabinet. Kenney is responsible for overseeing the Governor’s “Green New Deal” implementation by creating anti-energy laws to cripple the oil and gas industry.
Nora Sackett, Lujan Grisham’s spokeswoman, said the Environment Department “has been tasked with ensuring the health and safety of workers and customers statewide, including carrying out tens of thousands of rapid responses, running the state’s wastewater surveillance testing program, and coordinating with businesses to ensure safe practices and establish mobile testing programs, all of which Secretary Kenney coordinated and executed.”
Sackett is referring to the Governor weaponizing the Energy Department to close down establishments and fine businesses for alleged non-compliance with her extreme public health orders that have locked the state down for over a year. One establishment in Grants was fined $60,000 at the start of the pandemic while churches had $5,000+ fines, and O’Reilly Auto Parts in Santa Fe was fined $79,200.
The news of Kenney’s pay boost comes just days after Kenney gave an employee, Justin Garouette, an ex-staffer on porn actor-turned state Rep. Roger Montoya’s campaign, a $32,000 raise.
The raises come just three months after it was discovered the Governor’s office handed eight of her own staff members raises totaling $92,000 over the past year, a 10% bump on average, far outpacing the raises more broadly granted state employees.
The raises were as follows:
Comm. Director Tripp Stelnicki ($18,600), Director of Boards and Commissions Melissa Salazar ($12,000), Chief of Staff Teresa Casados ($10,800), Chief of Staff Matt Garcia ($10,600), Cabinet Director Dominic Gabello ($10,600), Policy Advisor Diego Arencon ($10,000), Director of Cabinet Affairs Caroline Buerkle ($10,000) and Director of Legislative Affairs Victor Reyes ($7,500).
New Mexico’s unemployment rate is 8.3% and is the third-worst in the nation. It is also at its worst point in 30 years, outpacing even the Great Recession following the housing bubble crash of 2008. State employees generally did not get raises in this year’s budget, while teachers received a 1% raise.
New Mexicans are still suffering due to embattled Gov. Michelle Lujan Grisham’s strict lockdown orders, which she changes every once in a while on her COVID rainbow, also known as her “red to green” framework for reopening. While New Mexicans are uncertain if their businesses will be forced to cut staff or change inventory levels due to the ever-changing color trajectory, Gov. Lujan Grisham is delving out massive raises to partisan staffers in her administration.
According to one report, Justin Garoutte, a special assistant to New Mexico Environment Secretary James Kenney, was given a gargantuan $32,000 raise, boosting this individual’s salary to $87,000 on a 40-hour-a-week schedule. That’s a 58% increase.
Garoutte has described himself as a “genderqueer gay” person. He previously worked on porn actor-turned New Mexico state representative Roger Montoya’s campaign as a “field director” and Montoya’s nonprofit group “Moving Arts Española” as a “development assistant” from March 2020 to July 2020.
During Montoya’s campaign, he used a charity donor list from Moving Arts Española to solicit campaign donations for his run.
According to his LinkedIn page, “Justin (pronouns: they/he) is from Antonito, a small town in southern Colorado’s San Luis Valley,” the LinkedIn page states. “Their areas of interest are environmental health, health equity, Latina/o/x health, LGBTQIA+ health, community building, social determinants of health, and community-based participatory research.”
Garoutte will now be director of strategic initiatives, leading “our science, innovation, collaboration and compliance cross-cutting portfolios,” said Kenney.
This gender-confused individual is not the only person in the Lujan Grisham administration to get a hefty raise in recent months. Garoutte’s massive pay increase comes just 3 months after it was discovered the Governor’s office handed eight of her own staff members raises totaling $92,000 over the past year, a 10% bump on average, far outpacing the raises more broadly granted state employees.
The raises were as follows:
Comm. Director Tripp Stelnicki ($18,600), Director of Boards and Commissions Melissa Salazar ($12,000), Chief of Staff Teresa Casados ($10,800), Chief of Staff Matt Garcia ($10,600), Cabinet Director Dominic Gabello ($10,600), Policy Advisor Diego Arencon ($10,000), Director of Cabinet Affairs Caroline Buerkle ($10,000) and Director of Legislative Affairs Victor Reyes ($7,500).
But the raises didn’t come without a thick layer of condescension from the ivory towers of the Governor’s Office. Press secretary Nora Sackett said, “Governor’s office staff play a critical role in the operation of the state’s executive branch and the governance of the state – all of which is amplified during a yearlong crisis.” This appears to be another “let them eat cake” sentiment to once again kick New Mexicans while they’re down.
New Mexico’s unemployment rate is 8.3% and is the third-worst in the nation. It is also at its worst point in 30 years, outpacing even the Great Recession following the housing bubble crash of 2008.
Larry Behrens of the pro-energy group Power The Future said, “I can’t think of anything more pathetic than radical environmentalists handing themselves massive raises while New Mexico’s families suffer under the worst unemployment rate in 30 years. I guess leaders in this administration feel if you’re going to continue to attack New Mexico’s energy workers it helps to have a 5-person media relations office. The message is clear: if you’re part of the eco-left inner circle, there’s plenty of green for you because the taxpayers are footing the bill.”
On Wednesday, the left-wing Santa Fe Reporter wrote a fluff piece about a disgraced Northern New Mexico state House of Representatives candidate, Roger Montoya, who was elected last week to that position.
Montoya admitted to acting in multiple pornographic films under the stage names of “Joe Savage” and “Eric Martinez,” and claimed he did these graphic adult movies because he was a “struggling college student” in Los Angeles. Despite the revelation, uncovered exclusively by the Piñon Post, the Velarde Democrat refused to bow out of the race, and high-ranking Democrats, such as Speaker of the House Brian Egolf and U.S. Sen. Martin Heinrich encouraged him to hide his shady porn past.
Now, the New Mexico House of Representatives will have a porn star running around the Roundhouse making laws and marking a permanent stain on the reputation of the once-hallowed chamber.
In the Reporter’s ode to the porn star, author Julie Ann Grimm claimed that letting the public know about Montoya’s degenerate past was a “political maneuver” and a “smear” by a “right-wing blog.” However, all of Piñon Post’s reports on the revelations–that the liberal media failed to find–were done in an objective, straightforward way, without the slightest hint of political rhetoric lumped in.
Also during the campaign, the Piñon Post found out that Montoya lied on his Albuquerque Journal questionnaire and used his 501(c)(3) charity donor list to fundraise for his political campaign–a grave and illegal offense, which one of his former donors even reported in multiple complaints with the state Attorney General’s Office and the Internal Revenue Service.
Despite providing voters this critical information on a major party candidate running for the legislative position, the left-wing media appears enamored with the thought of Montoya making laws in the Legislature. So enamored that Grimm even claimed the self-admitted pornography acting by Montoya was just a “rumor.”
Unfortunately for the long history and reputation of the New Mexico House of Representatives, it appears that anything goes now. Since the Democrats have “made history” by electing the first porn star to the chamber, what’s next? That question no one yet has an answer to, but Democrats and their liberal sycophants in the media are sitting at the ready to churn out whatever propaganda is necessary to prop up their chosen candidates–no matter how damning their pasts.
Get ready: next cycle, who knows what kind of riff-raff Democrats will come up with as suitable candidates for elected office. God help our state.
Roger Montoya, a disgraced New Mexico state House District 40 candidate, admitted this week to performing in multiple pornographic films in the 1980s after the Piñon Postfirst reported on it last week.
Now, Montoya faces more questions about his ethics, particularly regarding his tactics to raise money for his New Mexico House bid. According to a former donor to the non-profit 501(c)(3) charity he co-founded and is currently the “Artistic Director” for, Moving Arts Española, Montoya appears to have been soliciting political campaign contributions from donors to Moving Arts Española.
The former donor, Larry Sonntag of Albuquerque, said Montoya contacted him at his home on July 30th, 2020, thanking him for a $400 donation to his campaign, which Sonntag explained that it must have been a mistake.
In a later August 3, 2020 call, Sonntag said that Montoya “had confirmed a contribution from me and my wife to his campaign. I told him that was not true and he then acknowledge[d] the charity donor list may have been used.”
The transcript of the call is as follows:
Montoya: You and your wife did contribute to the campaign. I think it was $400 in the primary. I’m confused.
Sonntag: No, You’re saying we gave $400 to your political campaign?
Montoya: Yes.
Sonntag: Okay, well yeah, I need to see that because that is not accurate.
Montoya: Okay, well, maybe there’s a crossover somehow, which is unfortunate because this is the kind of thing that needs to not happen, and that could be on us.
Sonntag: Well, that’s why I’m calling because we have given money to Moving Arts Espanñola.
Montoya: Right, and so there may be a confusion there in the lists is what you’re getting at.
Sonntag: I am, and that’s a problem because there should be no confusion between a charitable donation list and your campaign list.
Montoya: Yes, I hear you loud and clear.
A subsequent email from Montoya to Sonntag confirms that Montoya used his charitable 501(c)(3) donor list to solicit funds for his political campaign.
“Our records show that your contribution of $100 was received on 05-30-2017 to Moving Arts Española, a 501c3 charitable organization.
I want to apologize for the delay in clarifying the unfortunate mistake we made in listing your name on a potential donor list for my 2020 political campaign for State House District 40. My interns projected an ask amount of $400 and that explains the mixup and the call I made to you.
I assure you that this list has been corrected, that funds in your name were not used in my political campaign which began in March 2020, and no reporting has been made to that end. Also, please know you have been removed from my potential donor campaign list.”
The news did not sit well with Sonntag, who said, “Using a donation to his charitable organization as an invitation to seek a political campaign donation is not only unethical, mixing charity and political work is contrary to federal and state laws governing charities being involved in a political campaign.”
“A complaint has been filed against Moving Arts Espanola/Roger Montoya with the IRS and NM Attorney General’s Office who regulates charities in NM based on a 501c3 charity being involved in a political campaign,” Sonntag said.
The IRS complaint was filed by Sonntag on September 15, 2020, specifying in the nature of the violation that Moving Arts Española “is involved in a political campaign.” The complaint with New Mexico Attorney General Hector Balderas’ office was also filed on September 15, 2020. Sonntag acknowledged that the information he submitted is “true and accurate to the best of [his] knowledge during the process of filing the complaints.”
Sonntag also says he “contacted the President of the Board of Directors, Steve Cox, for Moving Arts Espanola, [gave] him the complaint, and he determined that Roger Montoya had done nothing wrong according to their donor relations protocol.”
Sonntag commented, “What if the mega-churches in ABQ started using their donor list to solicit campaign contributions for members of their church who are running for office? The fact that Moving Arts Española is okay with Roger Montoya doing this stuns me. They are a great organization, doing great work and shouldn’t have anyone, not even the founder of the charity, muddying the lines between charity and politics.”
No known action has been taken by the Attorney General’s office or the U.S. Treasury Department on the matter.
Tax Lien
According to an Inspection of Public Records Act (IPRA) request from the New Mexico Department of Taxation and Revenue, Montoya appears to have lied on a candidate survey from the Albuquerque Journal claiming he had never been subject to any state or federal tax liens. He responded, “No” to the following question in the questionnaire:
Have you or your business, if you are a business owner, ever been the subject of any state or federal tax liens?
However, a document provided by the New Mexico Department of Taxation and Revenue paints a different picture. According to the document, on January 16, 2019, Montoya had paid off a tax lien for an undisclosed amount filed on November 6, 2017.
The official state documents do not add up to the answer Montoya gave on the Albuquerque Journal questionnaire.
The multiple very recent instances of unethical and likely illegal activities by Montoya give more insight into the candidate’s moral compass and raise questions as to why he has not disclosed to the press accurate information and why he has solicited donations from lists of charitable donors to his tax-exempt non-profit organization. These revelations also help further paint a picture of how Montoya has evolved from the time he did pornography in the 1980s up until this point.
Montoya’s campaign was contacted on multiple occasions for comment but has not yet responded to the Piñon Post’s requests. This report will be updated if Mr. Montoya wishes to provide a statement.
Note: all documents have been redacted of private information, such as contact numbers and addresses as well as personal identification numbers to protect the privacy of Mr. Montoya and Mr. Sonntag.
On Monday, following the revelation that Roger Montoya, the Democrat nominee for the New Mexico House of Representatives, confirmed he acted in multiple hard-core pornographic films, first reported on by the Piñon Post, high-profile Democrats came to his defense.
The state Democrat Party went on full damage control mode, with Speaker Brian Egolf bemoaning the fact that the Santa Fe New Mexican was reporting on the news, despite Montoya bringing public attention to it by offering a comment.
Egolf said he was “disappointed tremendously” that the Santa Fe New Mexican saw the story as newsworthy and that “People should, and I believe do, make their decision on whom to support in an election based on who they are and what they can offer to their community.”
In Montoya’s statement, he blamed his youth and need to use the funds to pay his way through college for selling his body and having unprotected sexual intercourse in multiple pornographic films. He wrote, “As a 22-year-old struggling college student, I was a modern dancer and performer living in Los Angeles.” He continues, “I was auditioning for commercials and doing my best to succeed. Among those choices were two adult films I acted in as an adult, with other adults, in a very different environment and time.” It should be noted that most struggling college students do not turn to pornography to pay their bills, and most actors do not either. According to the Hollywood Reporter, many in the entertainment industry have taken jobs in the foodservice industry — not pornography.
Montoya also tried to erroneously blame the Republican Party for his past actions as a porn star, despite the Piñon Post uncovering this evidence, not the Republican Party. Democrat Party chair Marg Elliston doubled down, claiming it was a Republican attack, and trying to pass the buck on President Trump, although the President has never had sex for money or performed sexual acts in any pornographic films, as Montoya has.
Democrat U.S. Rep. Deb Haaland (NM-1) went on Twitter echoing much of the same rhetoric, writing, “The #NMGOP is quick to act high and mighty but their presidential candidate has assaulted women, lied over 20,000 times, and failed to protect Americans from COVID. @montoya_for has lifted up New Mexicans, and I have his back.”
The #NMGOP is quick to act high and mighty but their presidential candidate has assaulted women, lied over 20,000 times, and failed to protect Americans from COVID. @montoya_for has lifted up New Mexicans, and I have his back. You can too. Donate today https://t.co/b4DThLziwo
New Mexico state Rep. Joy Garratt commented on a post by a Dr. Brittany Fallon trying to normalize Montoya’s actions, writing, “It’s up to the voters, and Dr. Brittany, thanks for the insertion of common sense humor.”
It's up to the voters, and Dr. Brittany, thanks for the insertion of common sense humor.
— Representative Joy Garratt, NM HD29 (@joyousgarratt) October 6, 2020
In the Democrat Party of New Mexico statement, U.S. Sen. Martin Heinrich wrote that he encouraged Montoya to run, adding, “If I were a 19 year old kid struggling with addiction or exploitation, Roger is exactly who I would want as a mentor.”
The Republican Party of New Mexico urged Montoya to drop out of the race, writing in a statement, “It’s clear that Montoya’s values are not in line with the conservative values of the people of Northern New Mexico.” New Mexico Republican Party Chairman Steve Pearce wrote, “This irresponsible and reckless behavior of starring in gay porno films, whether it takes place now or years ago, is unbecoming of any candidate or elected official.”
Montoya’s Republican opponent Justin Salazar-Torrez said that the “voters would have to decide” if Montoya is the right choice for New Mexico’s 40th District.
The Democrats’ response to Montya’s announcement now appears to show their overwhelming support for their candidates to have acted in pornographic films where the individuals had unprotected sexual intercourse. By this standard, if a Republican or Independent candidate were found out to have acted in explicit material like this, they should also get a free pass, per the Democrats’ own standard, although that scenario is not likely to come up.
Montoya is a favorite of many top-level Democrat politicians in New Mexico. He has the endorsements of Gov. Michelle Lujan Grisham, U.S. Sen. Martin Heinrich, and has received over $2,500 from “MLG PAC,” Lujan Grisham’s political action committee. He has received campaign funds and endorsements from the pro-abortion group Planned Parenthood Votes New Mexico and the environmental group the Sierra Club. In 2019, Gov. Lujan Grisham appointed Montoya to the Human Rights Commission at the Department of Workforce Solutions following the CNN award. Gov. Lujan Grisham has not commented on Montoya’s confirmation of his sex work.
According to a report done by a prominent investigative firm, Democrat Roger Montoya, running for an open seat in the 40th District of the New Mexico House of Representatives, has apparently appeared in multiple pornographic gay films, something he has made no mention of in any public media or any other place.
In 2019, Montoya was chosen by CNN as a “CNN Hero” for his role in the performing arts, where the network highlighted his longtime battle with AIDS, writing, “by the late 1980s, he was HIV-positive.”
Montoya is a favorite of many top-level Democrat politicians in New Mexico. He has the endorsements of Gov. Michelle Lujan Grisham, U.S. Sen. Martin Heinrich, and has received over $2,500 from “MLG PAC,” Lujan Grisham’s political action committee. He has received campaign funds and endorsements from the pro-abortion group Planned Parenthood Votes New Mexico and the environmental group the Sierra Club. In 2019, Gov. Lujan Grisham appointed Montoya to the Human Rights Commission at the Department of Workforce Solutions following the CNN award.
The investigative report found that Montoya appears to have had unprotected sex in multiple gay films titled “Hot Male Mechanics,” “Spring Training,” “The Lumber Yard,” “Falcon Bareback,” and “Hot Chili Peppers 2” going by the name “Joe Savage” or “Eric Martinez.” One source notes, “Joe Savage has concentrated on working with Distribpix / Video-X-Pix, Falcon Studios, and Midnight Video.” These all appear to be pornographic production companies.
The report by the investigator reads:
I then used open media sources to obtain photographs of Roger Montoya. … All the photographs were then put on the same spreadsheet for comparisons. All the photographs show similar facial features. Although there is a 35-year difference, there are cues noticed in the ears, specifically the ear lobes. The eyebrows and chin structure are also similar.
The report concluded that it was the opinion of two investigators that the “similarities in the photographs are a good match that Roger Montoya and Joe Savage are one in the same.”
Confirmed picture of Roger Montoya from a family photograph (right). Judging by the clothing style, it is from the late 1970s. Publicity photo for one of Joe Savage’s movies (left) for comparison.
An independent investigation by the Piñon Post of the provided photographs by the investigator matched these photographs to those posted on the website “Gay Santa Fe,” which did a piece on Montoya after the “CNN Heroes” story.
The story included photographs of Montoya dancing, as well as a headshot from around the time he may have appeared in pornographic movies, which was approximately around the year 1985, according to Joe Savage’s profile on IMDB.
The body type of the head/body shot from the “Joe Savage” pornography profile on “Hot Movies,” provided by the investigator, appears to be similar to that of the Gay Santa Fe photograph showing Montoya dancing.
Screenshot of Savage obtained by investigators from one of his pornographic films (left), Montoya from Gay Santa Fe article (right).The closeup photograph from the Gay Santa Fe piece (right) reveals how similar Joe Savage/Eric Martinez and Roger Montoya appear, even approximately 35 years after the photograph was taken.
To further validate the similarities between both men, Piñon Post took the photographs from the Joe Savage profile and searched them in the “PimEyes” online search platform, which matches visually similar images up with others on the internet. One of the search results that came up matched the 1980s photograph to a much more recent one of Roger Montoya from a website called “Living Juicy,” as well as other graphic images from Joe Savage’s pornographic films. Note: graphic search results have been blurred out.
The Piñon Post reached out to Mr. Montoya for comment via telephone and email correspondence on multiple occasions, but did not hear back and could not leave a message due to his voicemail inbox being full. If Montoya does care to comment, this report will be updated. Montoya is running against Republican Justin Salazar-Torres for the 40th District New Mexico House seat.
Note: No direct links to Joe Savage’s/Eric Martinez’s pornographic videos are embedded in this article, due to their graphic nature. Photographs and headshots of Joe Savage/Eric Martinez are copyright of “Falcon Studios.”
