By Dennis Domrzalski
We don’t know if former University of New Mexico President and alleged scholar F. Chris Garcia will be convicted of charges that he recruited women to earn their—and his—livings by giving blow jobs and other sexual delights to strangers for money.
The 71-year-old prof, whom the local media fawned over when he taught political science at UNM, is charged with helping run an online prostitution ring that served more than 1,400 horny customers. Garcia, supposedly know as BurquePops, is charged with recruiting women to spread their legs and open their orifices for cash.
He is presumed innocent until proven guilty. That’s the way it should be.
But Garcia has already proven himself to be an elitist pig unworthy of anyone’s sympathy.
Today’s (July 12) edition of the Albuquerque Journal includes a front-page story about a letter that Garcia wrote to UNM President David Schmidly shortly after he was arrested. Schmidly barred Garcia from campus and his UNM office and suspended his teaching privileges while police were still collecting evidence in the case. Schmidly also thought it proper to keep Garcia away from the campus and young, female students while the case against him is resolved.
Garcia’s letter to Schmidly protesting the ban smacks of arrogant elitism and the attitude that those in high positions deserve not to be held to the same standards as the rest of us fools.
“I had hoped that you might give me the benefit of the doubt and at least somewhat take into consideration my many years of contribution to the university...but apparently have not,” the Journal quoted Garcia’s letter as saying.
Here’s the translation to that: You and I are in the same club and I am shocked and appalled that you would treat me like an ordinary student, kitchen worker, car mechanic or bus driver. I am a professor!
Garcia’s letter continued: “I would expect that a person of your academic and administrative experience would be far more understanding and perhaps even show some compassion towards me in my current situation.”
Translation: The rules and laws that apply to other rubes don’t apply to you or me. We are better than everyone else.
And then the kicker to Garcia’s letter: “Given my long and meritorious serviced to the university, I am extremely disappointed in the lack of professional courtesy extended to me.”
The kicker is the line about extending professional courtesy. It means that Garcia feels he should be afforded special privileges and treatment because of who he is and the club he belongs to.
Professional courtesy works like this: When an off-duty cop is stopped for smashing his car into a wall and reeks of alcohol, the cops on the scene laugh, let the cop go and doctor a police report to make it appear to be an “ordinary” accident, or never write a report at all.
Professional courtesy means that when lawyers, judges, firefighters or high-ranking public and business officials and other members of the club are caught drinking and driving, doing drugs or beating their spouses, they get a pass. It means there’s a double standard for club members and the rest of us. Club members walk, and the rest of us get arrested, go to jail, get finger printed, scramble to post bond, and then, humiliated, leaved to face family, friends and co-workers.
Professional courtesy was rampant here when I arrived 25 years ago. Cops protected themselves and other club members. Even the great Steve Schiff got caught up in extending professional courtesy to club members when he was the district attorney here in the mid-1980s.
Schiff admitted that the practice existed and vowed to end it. In the past 25 years it has been significantly eroded as we’ve seen judges, lawyers, cops, state legislators, state treasurers and other club members arrested, jailed, disbarred and convicted for a host of crimes.
That’s good. In America, and anywhere else, we should all stand equal before the law and rules and regulations and not get special treatment because of rank or club membership.
Garcia appears to be outraged that Schmidly gave him no special treatment and that he treated him as he would everyone else at the university who’s accused of a crime.
To demand special treatment based on rank or club membership is the height of piggishness and a lack of respect for blind justice. It’s the ultimate in contempt for basic human rights.
Garcia whined in his letter that he’s accused of a non-violent crime.
Really?
Prostitution might someday be legal here, but right now it isn’t. It’s associated with human trafficking— meaning slavery—violence, addiction, disease, early death and much more. I’m guessing that if you ask prostitutes if they’d like to make a 30-or-40-year career out of drugs, violence, slavery, disease, crime and sleazy sex, most would say no.
And, if he is convicted of having recruited women into the sex ring, Garcia would be guilty of having put them at risk of contracting diseases, being arrested, convicted, imprisoned, and having their lives forever ruined. How sensitive.
If Garcia wants professional courtesy, let it be the courtesy the rest of us get.
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