Retraction Pertaining to the October 13, 2023 Article "A History of Violence and Financial Troubles"

History of the Article

On October 13, 2023, the Mountainair Dispatch published A History of Violence and Financial Troubles. This article addressed the legal history of former town council member Ernie Lopez. Prior to the publication of this article, I attempted, unsuccessfully, to contact Mr. Lopez via telephone on October 5, 2023, and October 9, 2023 to fact-check the article and to interview Mr. Lopez regarding his reelection platform. On October 12, 2023, I emailed Mr. Lopez with the intention of confirming the cases in which he was a litigant and providing him with the opportunity to explain the circumstances that led to his involvement in these cases.

As I said in the October 12, 2023 email, "I want to make sure I cover this in a way that's fair and respectful." Mr. Lopez did not respond to this attempt to fact-check the article, and it was published without Mr. Lopez's insights on October 13, 2023.

On October 17, 2023, at a Mountainair Town Council Meeting, Mr. Lopez expressed his frustration with the article. Mr. Lopez also said that he believed I had included cases that did not apply to him in the article. On October 18, 2023, I contacted Mr. Lopez via email and asked him again to verify which cases were properly associated with him and which cases pertained to other individuals. Mr. Lopez did not respond to this attempt to correct the article.

On November 2, 2023, I published the article Police Records Show Additional Criminal Incidents For Ernie Lopez. I based this article on two police reports provided by the Town of Mountainair in response to an Inspection of Public Records Act (IPRA) request I submitted.

The Present State of Affairs

Roughly two years after publication of the article, on September 4, 2025, I received an email from attorney Eric D. Dixon, Esq., on behalf of Ernie Lopez. Included in this email was a list of cases Mr. Dixon said did not apply to Mr. Lopez. While I usually make corrections to articles directly within the webpage, this two-year delay would mean that any corrections made to the article would be buried amongst past articles, likely unread by present-day readers. Therefore, I decided to bring more attention to the retraction and my apology to Mr. Lopez by posting it on the front page of the Mountainair Dispatch.

The following cases were associated with Mr. Lopez in the original articles:

• State v. Ernie Lopez, (aggravated assault, 1991)
• Sunwest Bank of Albuquerque and Alhambra Landscape Co., Inc. v. Ernie Lopez (debt collection, 1991)
• State v. Ernie Lopez, (battery, probation violation, and failure to pay court-ordered penalties, 1992)
• State v. Ernie Lopez, (aggravated battery, 1996)
• City of Clovis v. Ernie Lopez (driving while intoxicated, 1998)
• In re Ernie Lopez (Chapter 7 bankruptcy, 1998)
• General Motors Acceptance Corp. v. Ernie Lopez (debt collection, 1998)
• Sun City Finance Co. v. Ernie Lopez (debt collection, 1998)
• State v. Ernie Lopez (assault against a household member, 2007)
• State v. Ernie Lopez (battery against a household member, 2010)
• Lopez v. Lopez (divorce, 2011)
• Whispering Sands Apts. v. Ernie Lopez, et al. (debt collection and eviction, 2012)
• Los Lunas Consumer Finance v. Ernie Lopez and Deborah Lopez (debt collection, 2013)
• State v. Ernie Lopez (driving while intoxicated, 2015)
• Ernie Lopez v. Michelle Teixeira (paternity, 2016)
• John and Nancy Erickson v. Ernie Lopez and Michelle Teixeira (debt collection and eviction, 2016)
• Robert Lopez, et al. v. Ernie Lopez, et al. (estate dispute, 2019)
• Ernie Lopez v. Town of Mountainair (defamation, 2022)

Mr. Dixon asserted in his September 4, 2025 letter that the following cases did not involve Mr. Lopez:

• State v. Ernie Lopez, (aggravated assault, 1991)
• Sunwest Bank of Albuquerque and Alhambra Landscape Co., Inc. v. Ernie Lopez (debt collection, 1991)
• State v. Ernie Lopez, (probation violation, failure to pay court-ordered penalties, and battery, 1992)
• State v. Ernie Lopez, (aggravated battery, 1996)
• City of Clovis v. Ernie Lopez (driving while intoxicated, 1998)
• Sun City Finance Co. v. Ernie Lopez (debt collection, 1998)
• State v. Ernie Lopez (assault against a household member, 2007)
• State v. Ernie Lopez (battery against a household member, 2010)
• Whispering Sands Apts. v. Ernie Lopez, et al. (debt collection and eviction, 2011)
• Ernie Lopez v. Michelle Teixeira (paternity, 2016)
• John and Nancy Erickson v. Ernie Lopez and Michelle Teixeira (debt collection and eviction, 2016)

Evidence supports the identification of the following cases as being associated with Mr. Lopez

• General Motors Acceptance Corp. v. Ernie Lopez (debt collection, 1998)
• In re Ernie Lopez (Chapter 7 Bankruptcy, 1998)
• Lopez v. Lopez (divorce, 2011)
• Los Lunas Consumer Finance v. Ernie Lopez, et al. (debt collection, 2013)
• State v. Ernie Lopez (driving while intoxicated, dismissed pursuant to agreement, 2015)
• Robert Lopez, Amy Isaacs, and Dorothy Baca v. Donald Lopez, Ernie Lopez, Vincent Lopez, and Dominique Chavez (estate dispute, 2019)
• Ernie Lopez v. Town of Mountainair (defamation, 2022)

The Mountainair Dispatch retracts any association of the following cases with Mr. Lopez:

• State v. Ernie Lopez, (aggravated assault, 1991)
• Sunwest Bank of Albuquerque and Alhambra Landscape Co., Inc. v. Ernie Lopez (debt collection, 1991)
• State v. Ernie Lopez, (probation violation, failure to pay court-ordered penalties, and battery, 1992)
• State v. Ernie Lopez, (aggravated battery, 1996)
• City of Clovis v. Ernie Lopez (driving while intoxicated, 1998)
• Sun City Finance Co. v. Ernie Lopez (debt collection, 1998)
• State v. Ernie Lopez (assault against a household member, 2007)
• State v. Ernie Lopez (battery against a household member, 2010)
• Whispering Sands Apts. v. Ernie Lopez, et al. (debt collection and eviction, 2011)
• Ernie Lopez v. Michelle Teixeira (paternity, 2016)
• John and Nancy Erickson v. Ernie Lopez and Michelle Teixeira (debt collection and eviction, 2016)

As the reporter for the Mountainair Dispatch responsible for this error, I wish to apologize to Mr. Lopez for the inclusion of these cases in the articles. Although readers remain free to draw their own conclusions, the Mountainair Dispatch also retracts the following statement in the original article: “Lopez’s legal history stretches back to 1991 and includes an unusually large number of criminal and civil cases in both state and federal courts.”

Mountainair Police Department Investigations in the November 2, 2023 article

Mr. Dixon asserts that the following Mountainair Police Department Incident reports do not apply to Mr. Lopez:

• Incident Report MTPD6120011 (Call Type: domestic violence, December 23, 2016)
• Incident Report MTPD20050003 (Classification: simple assault, May 4, 2020)

These police reports clearly identify Mr. Lopez as the suspect. In the 2016 incident, Mr. Lopez is identified by home address and physical description. In the 2020 incident, the reporting police officer identified Mr. Lopez as a town council member and identified Mr. Lopez by home address and physical description.

What will be done to ensure this error is not repeated

When I obtain court records associated with a person from nmcourts.gov, I receive less information than a practicing attorney would. For example, in a recent civil case involving Mr. Lopez as a plaintiff, the only information provided regarding Mr. Lopez is the identify of his attorney. In a criminal or divorce case, the only information provided is the year of birth of a defendant or respondent, respectively. Therefore, a secondary private sector database will be used to verify cases prior to their use in articles. This database will be vetted with a professional journalism organization to ensure its reliability and accuracy, and will be identified in the Mountainair Dispatch’s Standards and Practices page.

Conclusion

While I wish I had published only the cases correctly associated with Mr. Lopez in the 2023 article, and while I wish I could have made these corrections while fact-checking these articles in 2023, I am grateful that I have the opportunity to now correct this past reporting in a fashion largely in line with the request by Mr. Dixon. I once again apologize to Mr. Lopez. I intend to follow the aforementioned plan for using private sector research tools to verify research obtained from nmcourts.gov. I appreciate the patience of my readers in allowing me to address this matter.

Very respectfully,

Todd Brogowski