BCSO fires deputy in widening DWI Deception scandal
BCSO fired Jeffry Bartram on July 10, deepening a DWI Deception probe that has already toppled two other deputies and erased hundreds of cases.
Bernalillo County Sheriff’s Office fired deputy Jeffry Bartram on Friday, July 10, deepening the fallout from the DWI Deception scandal that has already forced out two other deputies and shaken trust in impaired-driving enforcement across county lines. Bartram had been on leave since March 2025, and his termination closed another chapter in a case that has already reached Bernalillo County courtrooms, Albuquerque agencies and the officers who handled DWI stops.
Sheriff John Allen said on February 22, 2025, the FBI informed him of an inquiry implicating a member of his command staff in DWI case manipulations. Allen then requested and received undersheriff Johann Jareno’s resignation effective February 23, saying he acted to preserve the integrity of the sheriff’s office. Jeff Hammerel also resigned, leaving Bartram as the third BCSO deputy tied to the scandal.
Bartram had been hired by BCSO on February 15, 2010, giving him more than a decade on the payroll before the department moved to terminate him. Sheriff officials have said deputies are expected to follow agency policies and standards, and that serious discipline or termination will be used when warranted. In a corruption case built around DWI enforcement, that standard matters well beyond personnel files: when the officers assigned to make drunken-driving arrests are accused of helping manipulate cases, every stop, every court date and every dismissal becomes harder to trust.
The broader case has already left a heavy mark on prosecutions. The Bernalillo County District Attorney’s Office dismissed 17 more DWI cases on February 4, 2025, and Hammerel was the officer on 13 of them. KOB has reported that the district attorney’s office had dismissed 230 DWI cases because of the scandal. Federal investigators believe officers took bribes to miss court dates, a scheme that led to the dismissals and now hangs over pending and future DWI prosecutions.
KRQE and KOB have said the wider investigation reaches beyond BCSO to the Albuquerque Police Department and New Mexico State Police, and that it has already produced multiple guilty pleas. For Sandoval County residents who drive through Albuquerque, deal with Bernalillo County agencies or see DWI cases move through the same regional courts, Bartram’s firing is another sign that the scandal is still altering the credibility of law enforcement far outside the sheriff’s office itself.
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