A court-appointed "special master" stood at the front door of the state District Court building Thursday and read a judge's order for the sale of Charles Kokesh's Santa Fe Horse Park.

Los Alamos National Bank, which seeks to foreclose on its $2.25 million loan made five years ago, was the only bidder on the 35-acre equestrian center with polo grounds and stables, southwest of Santa Fe.

Neither Kokesh nor anyone from the bank was present. Bank officers already had submitted their $2.1 million bid, said Jonathan Morse, a special master for the sale. He was curious why a reporter would attend such a routine event.

Although the sale has yet to be accepted by the court and further motions are expected, Thursday's foreclosure is the latest in a string of financial setbacks for Kokesh.

Kokesh moved to Santa Fe in 1997 from Northern California, where he founded venture-capital firms specializing in start-ups in biotechnology and medical diagnostics. For a time, the federal government allowed customers to invest in Kokesh's firms over the Internet by direct withdrawals from bank accounts or credit cards.

A polo enthusiast, he and his wife, Marla Kokesh, bought the Santa Fe Horse Park the next year, expanded it and began holding polo tournaments. Among his partners was Jordanian businessman Amin Badr-El-Din. In 2004, Kokesh launched the Grand Prix de Santa Fe, an annual horse show and jumping competition, that was canceled only this year.

The Santa Fe Horse Park originally irrigated its fields with effluent from the nearby city wastewater plan. But the city cut off the effluent two years ago over an alleged debt of $189,481, so the park began irrigating from the nearby Hagerman well, jointly operated by the county, the city and the horse park.

Kokesh became a rare breed of conservative in predominantly Democratic Santa Fe. At a local GOP fundraiser last year, where he raffled a rifle manufactured at Dakota Arms, a firm he subsequently sold to Remington, Kokesh joked that he "certainly wouldn't oppose shooting all of the corrupt lawyers and Democrats."

His son, Adam Kokesh, a Marine veteran of Iraq turned anti-war follower of libertarian Ron Paul, is running for the Republican nomination for the U.S. House seat held by Democrat Ben Ray Luján, son of state House Speaker Rep. Ben Luján, D-Nambé.

Even as Santa Fe Horse Park teetered toward foreclosure last month, it donated $200 to Asenath Kepler's mayoral campaign.

Late October, the U.S. Securities and Exchange Commission charged Charles Kokesh with misappropriating more than $45 million in investments in his venture-capital firms by improperly collecting distributions, fees and reimbursements, and trying to "conceal the scheme" with misleading proxy statements.

The most recent action in the SEC case is a "refusal to proceed" filed by Kokesh's lawyer, Clinton W. Marrs of Albuquerque, who is seeking a jury trial for Kokesh in U.S. District Court. The SEC says this is the first such case it has ever prosecuted in New Mexico.

The Santa Fe Horse Park foreclosure case is not Kokesh's only unpaid debt:

• Thornburg Mortgage is seeking to foreclose on Kokesh's home to satisfy a mortgage of $4.3 million on the Camino Corrales house valued for tax purposes at about $2.2 million. The most recent occurrence in that case is Kokesh's motion alleging Thornburg Mortgage, which is in bankruptcy, as "not a real party in interest" and to stay the proceedings.

• GEMB Lending also has a complaint against Kokesh, seeking to take possession of his 1996 motor home, valued at $180,000, to satisfy a debt of $227,418. A lawyer for GEMB says he has not been able to reach Kokesh, even though a judge has ruled that Kokesh has defaulted in the case.

• Citibank also is suing Marla Kokesh for an unpaid $9,054 on a credit card. That case also is unresolved. In that case, as well as in the others, Kokesh blamed misunderstandings and said the recent sale of Dakota Arms in Sturgis, S.D., to the Remington Co. will allow him to clear the debts. But that has not happened.

At last week's hearing on Santa Fe Horse Park, Tom Simons, a lawyer for Los Alamos National Bank, suggested Kokesh is trying to delay judgment. Kokesh's lawyer, Will Waggoner, maintained the foreclosure did not include the Hagerman well on the property or water rights attached to it.

State District Judge Barbara Vigil, who took over the case late last year, had agreed to postpone the sale set for Dec. 22 until Jan. 20. On Jan. 15, she agreed to postpone it again pending a Jan. 29 hearing. But on Jan. 29, Vigil dismissed a motion for another postponement, based on the contention that the water rights are separate from the real estate.

At Simons' suggestion, Vigil issued an order that special master Morse had ready to hand out to anyone attending Thursday's sale. It said the sale did not necessarily include the well or water rights, but that the exclusion "does not reflect a determination by the Court whether they are appurtenant to the mortgaged property or not."

Contact Tom Sharpe at 986-3080 or tsharpe@sfnewmexican.com.