Almost two years after a state grand jury charged former New Mexico Secretary of State Rebecca Vigil-Giron and three consultants hired by her office on multiple counts of fraud, money laundering and other charges, a federal grand jury has indicted two of Vigil-Giron's co-defendants on additional charges.

Political consultant Armando Gutierrez, currently of Corpus Christi, Texas, and lobbyist Joe Kupfer of Rio Rancho are accused of overbilling by about $2.5 million for services in a voter education project administered by Vigil-Giron. The project involved federal money from the Help America Vote Act.

The indictments were announced Thursday by U.S. Attorney Kenneth Gonzales.

Kupfer and his wife, Elizabeth "Daisy" Kupfer — who formerly worked for the state Attorney General's Office — previously were indicted on federal tax evasion charges.

Vigil-Giron was not indicted in the federal case.

"The message behind this superseding indictment is that those who do business with government agencies will be held to the same high standards as government officials," Gonzales said in a news release.

"By entering into contracts to provide services paid for with taxpayers' monies, these private citizens become duty bound to provide honest services for the monies they receive. In this case, the defendants are charged with stealing more than $2,500,000 in taxpayers' monies and failing to provide any services for that money. When anyone, including public officials and government contractors, abuses the public's trust in this way, they corrupt the system and erode the public's confidence in their government."

Gutierrez, the Kupfers and Vigil-Giron all have pleaded not guilty to state charges brought in 2009 in connection with the same voter education campaign.

A former Albuquerque resident, Gutierrez produced Spanish-language ads for former President Bill Clinton's 1996 campaign and Al Gore's 2000 presidential race. He also worked on Gov. Bill Richardson's 2002 gubernatorial campaign.

Vigil-Giron hired Gutierrez, who received more than $6 million in federal election money from 2004 to 2006. The new indictment alleges he defrauded the government by charging $2.5 million for work never performed.

Gutierrez's company is accused of trying to hide some of that total by providing a federal auditor with 187 fraudulent invoices totaling more than $1.1 million. These invoices purported to represent payments to media companies that never actually occurred, the U.S. Attorney says.

Gutierrez also is accused of submitting documents that changed the contract from a fixed hourly rate contract to a cost-plus-percentage-of-cost contract. Those documents also claimed Gutierrez was permitted to hire subcontractors without written approval of the Secretary of State's Office.

The indictment also claims Gutierrez paid $746,375 in federal Help America Vote Act funds to Joseph Kupfer's consulting company between October 2004 and November 2006. The government contends Gutierrez and Joseph Kupfer knew the payments far exceeded the value of any work that Kupfer ever actually performed. The Secretary of State Office files contained no documentation reflecting that Gutierrez had retained Kupfer as a subcontractor.

Joseph Kupfer billed $236,605 for a poll-worker training video actually produced by another subcontractor at a cost of $75,000, the indictment claims.

But, the U.S. Attorney said, these documents were not in the files of the Secretary of State Office, the New Mexico Department of Finance and Administration or the Attorney General's Office. They were not approved by the state DFA as required by state law.

A spokeswoman for the U.S. Attorney's Office said Thursday that the new indictments would not have an effect on the state case against Vigil-Giron and the others. "Two separate, independent cases," Elizabeth Martinez said.

The state case has been stalled in court. In March, a state district judge ruled that King's office couldn't prosecute the case. Defense lawyers argued that the Attorney General's Office had a conflict of interest partly because Daisy Kupfer had worked for the office and because the attorney general also represents the Secretary of State Office. A new prosecutor, Joseph Campbell, who worked for many years in the Santa Fe District Attorney's Office, has been appointed, attorney general spokesman Phil Sisneros said Thursday.

The state judge who has presided over that case, Pat Murdoch of Albuquerque, recently resigned after being charged with raping a prostitute.

Contact Steve Terrell at 986-3037 or sterrell@sfnewmexican.com. Read his political blog at roundhouseroundup.com.