Mayor Martin Chavez on Friday sent a notice to the Second Chance rehabilitation program, ordering it out of the old West Side jail by Jan. 31. The city contends that Second Chance violated its lease agreement by housing violent offenders and making unauthorized changes to the building. C h ave z said he was particularly c onc er ne d that Second Ch a nc e, i n h is v iew, had recently moved some of its residents to "avoid ...

SOCCORO COUNTY, N.M. (KRQE) - It's been a bad week for the controversial Second Chance drug and alcohol treatment center. On Friday, the City of Albuquerque terminated the center's lease, and a day later Socorro County is cutting ties. The El Defensor Chieftain newspaper reports that the Socorro County Commission voted this week to void their contract with Second Chance because of problems that recently surfaced at the facility. Two Socorro County inmates were housed there when commissioners voted Tuesday. Friday, ...

ALBUQUERQUE (KRQE) - A controversial drug-rehab center organized on elements of Scientology is being evicted for housing inmates convicted of violent crimes, Albuquerque's mayor said Friday. The eviction notice gives Second Chance until the end of the next month to wind down the operation housed in a former city jail on Albuquerque's northwest mesa. So far there has been no response from Second Chance. For the 46 inmates now housed at Second Chance it appears that in a matter of weeks ...

The controversial Second Chance Center is probably not going to get another chance, officials said Thursday. The violent criminals from around the state who are being housed at the secure residential drug treatment facility may cost Second Chance its lease on the old West Side jail building, Albuquerque Chief Public Safety Officer Pete Dinelli said Thursday. Housing inmates with convictions for violent offenses is in direct violation of Second Chance's mandate, Dinelli said. "We made it very clear to (Second Chance) ...

Dec 25, 2008 (Albuquerque Journal - McClatchy-Tribune Information Services via COMTEX) – Eight inmates were loaded onto a van at the embattled Second Chance Center drug rehabilitation program early Wednesday and driven west from the secure center and across the Bernalillo County line, officials said. Another 40 people were loaded onto a bus outside the center and dropped off at an Albuquerque homeless shelter, city officials said. Authorities are still trying to sort out how many of the 48 people were ...

ALBUQUERQUE (KRQE) - The Director of the Second Chance rehabilitation center is firing back after a News 13 report on Wednesday. Director Joy Westrum is angry after Albuquerque police claimed the facility snuck out 40 inmates ahead of a deadline to report them. The city made a mistake. Those 40 people bussed downtown on Wednesday were from the Albuquerque Rescue Mission which shares a building with Second Chance. However Albuquerque Public Safety Director Pete Dinelli said he's confirmed eight other people ...

ALBUQUERQUE (KRQE) - Under cover of darkness Wednesday the troubled Second Chance rehab center mysteriously shuttled nearly 50 patients or inmates away from its facility just ahead of a deadline to explain who it's been housing. Albuquerque police who put the West Mesa facility under surveillance said they witnessed the bizarre twist in the Second Chance saga early Wednesday. Later in the day the rehab program was under a 5 p.m. deadline to document all its inmates and clients to the ...

The Second Chance Center has until Christmas Eve to satisfy the city or face eviction. If the secure rehabilitation facility for drug offenders currently leasing the old West Side jail building from the city doesn't give a detailed accounting of its inmates, what charges landed them at Second Chance, what treatment they are receiving and information about the center's insurance and property taxes, it will most likely be shut down, city officials said. Albuquerque Chief Public Safety Officer Pete Dinelli sent ...

ALBUQUERQUE (KRQE) - A Sierra County official engaged in major backtracking Friday after her statements the day before threatened to cause big trouble for an Albuquerque drug-treatment program called Second Chance. County Manager Janet Porter-Carrejo told News 13 that she was sending overflow inmates from her jail to the Second Chance rehab center without getting permission from a judge. However on Friday she said she now believes that judges did OK those inmates. She also said a clerical mistake at her ...

ALBUQUERQUE, N.M. — A controversial Albuquerque rehabilitation center is struggling with finances, and the secure facility for drug and alcohol offenders could be in violation of the law that allowed it to open by housing overf low prisoners from a county jail . The Second Chance Center uses massage, natural diet, saunas, and some training manuals based on criminal justice research done by Church of Scientology founder L. Ron Hubbard to detoxify and rehabilitate drug offenders. But the program is facing ...

Miyagishima said when he first initiated his "Drug-Free Marshal" program, he was unaware that it was funded by Scientology. A sticker on the back of badges given to area third-graders identifies them as being "a trademark owned by the Church of Scientology International." The real concern was not so much the badges, but pamphlets that were to have been distributed to fifth-graders. Those pamphlets condemned not only illegal street drugs, but also legal drugs such as Ritalin that Scientologists strongly oppose. ...

LAS CRUCES, N.M. – It's a program aimed at getting kids off the streets and away from drugs. But now Las Cruces Mayor Ken Miyagishima is saying "not so fast." The program is called the Drug-Free Marshall Program, and it was quite a hit until the mayor found out it was sponsored by the Church of Scientology. Miyagishima said he was originally approached about the program in the summer. He said he liked the purpose and tried it in five different ...

LAS CRUCES — The city is immediately ending an anti-drug program aimed at third-graders after it was revealed it was created and bankrolled by the Church of Scientology. The "Drug-Free Marshal" program, started in late November, had only been presented to five schools but was intended to be promoted eventually among all third-graders in the Las Cruces Public Schools. Mayor Ken Miyagishima apologized Saturday and said it was not his intention to promote the religion. The mayor said he was approached ...

A controversial drug rehab program on Albuquerque's West Side may be on the verge of losing its state funding. Second Chance has been ridiculed for its expensive carrot juice and sauna approach to cleaning up addicts and now, some people are questioning whether it's a good use of taxpayer dollars. "Lets put that money, especially right now, when were on real hard economic times, lets put that money where we know it has a proven successful track record," said Bernalillo County ...

SANTA FE (KRQE) — A report presented to a legislative committee Monday suggests an Albuquerque drug-treatment program seeking more state money may not be as good as it claimed. Dr. Paul Guerin, who has been studying the program based on the teachings of the founder of Scientology, reported it does not have the success rate it has pointed to in the past. He delivered the results of his study in testimony to the Legislatures Courts, Corrections and Justice Committee meeting in ...

Curry County Commissioners agreed Tuesday not to pursue a contract with an Albuquerque rehabilitation program aimed at treating habitual drug offenders. [Picture: "Following Tuesday's meeting, officials toured the Special Events Center. Construction on the Special Events Center is about 98 percent complete with more than $31,000 left in contingency, Construction Project Supervisor Randy Kamradt said."] County Manager Lance Pyle told commissioners at Tuesday’s meeting the Second Chance Center has neglected to return a signed contract to the county since the commission ...

ALBUQUERQUE (KRQE) - The Albuquerque City Council Monday night unanimously denied the Church of Scientology's request to apply for a permissive-use permit for a downtown building. The church wants to convert the former Gizmo Store building in the 500 block of Central Avenue SW into the local Scientology center. A permissive-use permit would make that easier. Instead the council agreed with the ruling of a hearing officer who determined the Scientologists must seek a conditional-use permit. That will require another hearing. ...

ALBUQUERQUE (KRQE) - An Albuquerque rehabilitation program doesn't have nearly as good a success rate as organizers claim, a News 13 investigation finds. The Second Chance program, developed by the founder of Scientology, uses saunas to sweat out toxins and other techniques to try to get people off drugs and alcohol. Judges have sent more than 90 convicts to the facility near the Double Eagle II airport on Albuquerque's West Mesa since it opened in September 2006. The federal government and ...

The Church of Scientology of New Mexico was back for another city zoning hearing Monday as part of its attempt to relocate its church to Downtown Albuquerque. The church wants to move to the Gizmo building at Fourth and Central but has faced some community opposition and zoning challenges, delaying the building's proposed remodeling. "We're not arguing with the city; we just want to sort all this out," church community affairs director Sandy Block said Monday. Monday's hearing took up the ...

Albuquerque's land use hearing officer has 10 days to present his recommendation to the City Council for the special zoning of a church for the Church of Scientology in Downtown. In a public appeal of a code compliance official's declaratory ruling on churches in the City Council Committee room this morning, Church of Scientology of New Mexico attorney David Campbell told Land Use Hearing Officer Steven Chavez that the Downtown 2010 Sector Plan is not allowed, per state and federal law, ...

The black paint on the rock is indistinct, but Church of Scientology of New Mexico representative Sanford Block said it looks like someone tried to spray paint the letter "A." It was tossed in March through an office window at the group's Albuquerque headquarters, cracking a glass-framed portrait of Scientology founder L. Ron Hubbard, Block said. No one has claimed responsibility. Block said the "A" would stand for Anonymous, a shadowy Internet organization that in January began holding protests outside Scientology ...

Abstract: Scientology has never been a stranger to controversy and now an alternative prison rehabilitation center based on Scientology drug treatment stirs concern with medical experts. The Second Chance Center is a small facility outside Albuquerque, N.M., which uses the Scientology-based drug treatment program called Narconon. It is the first prison-based rehabilitation center in America that was designed specifically to foster the Narconon system, and its founders hope that it will be the model for more centers around the country. The ...

At a conditional use hearing today at the Albuquerque Planning Department, the Church of Scientology of New Mexico and those opposed to its plan to turn a landmark Downtown building into a Scientology center were not allowed to outline their respective arguments. Zoning Hearing Examiner Roberto Albertorio, who presided over the hearing, denied the church an opportunity to present its case, which its attorney, David Campbell, was prepared to do. Albertorio cited jurisdictional problems, saying that any decision he would make ...