By Jesse Jones — For nearly 12 months, the City of Albuquerque’s legal department failed to deliver required reports detailing how much the city paid in lawsuits to the City Council — and the council never asked.
After City Desk inquired with City Attorney Lauren Keefe earlier this year, she acknowledged that staff changes had delayed the reports for more than a year. The reports, going back as far as October 2024, were finally transmitted to the Council last week.
The reports show the city settled dozens of cases during the yearlong period, when the mayor and a majority of city council seats were up for election, including claims for wrongful death, civil rights, police shootings and repeated public records law violations. City Desk calculated just over $8 million in total settlements, noting the final report understates the total by roughly $500,000. In the first three months of 2025 alone, the city paid more than $3.1 million, largely driven by a single police shooting settlement.
Major settlements
Among the largest was a $2.5 million settlement, finalized in early 2025, over a 2020 police shooting. Max Mitnik’s parents called 9-1-1 for a Crisis Intervention Team after their son had a schizoaffective episode. According to the complaint, an Albuquerque Police Department (APD) officer shot Mitnik, leaving him with a traumatic brain injury and partial paralysis.
Another $850,000 resolved a wrongful death lawsuit alleging APD failed to arrest John Paul Ballejos, the likely suspect in a May 2022 double homicide who had threatened the victims, according to the complaint. Weeks later, Ballejos shot into a neighbor’s apartment — an officer knocked once, got no answer and closed the case. On Sept. 2, 2022, Ballejos killed Daniel Humphrey and Sonia Tenorio.
The city also paid $200,000 to the estate of Alexus Bianca Cortez, a 25-year-old mother killed while riding her bicycle in 2019 after overgrown vegetation blocked the sidewalk, according to the complaint.
Public records and whistleblower claims
During the reporting gap, the city paid roughly $1 million to settle at least 15 lawsuits over violations of the Inspection of Public Records Act. Most of the largest payouts involved APD.
Taxpayers covered $538,000 in the third quarter of 2025 alone to settle five transparency lawsuits, including a $248,000 payout to Sundra Coleman.
The city separately paid $275,000 to former Environmental Health deputy director Mara Elana Burstein, who alleged the city fired her after she resubmitted disability accommodation paperwork and reported possible legal malpractice by a city attorney. Burstein drove the passage of Senate Bill 8, the 2021 law that lets New Mexico adopt stricter environmental rules than federal standards.
APD Sgt. Bonnie Briones also settled a retaliation claim for $135,000.
Victories for the City
The city won several cases during the same period.
A court dismissed with prejudice a defamation lawsuit filed by a man APD publicly listed as one of the “Top 10 Burglars in Albuquerque.” An appellate court also reversed a $1.4 million award against the city in a lawsuit brought by three former sex crimes detectives. And a wrongful death suit over a police standoff suicide was dismissed after the court found officers had no duty to force entry.
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