After a sustained media campaign over alleged wasteful spending, Western New Mexico University President Joseph Shepard resigned effective January 15, 2025. The university paid the balance of his contract and negotiated a teaching position for him. An independent forensic audit overseen by the New Mexico State Auditor and released October 17, 2025, found no waste, fraud, abuse, incompetence, personal financial gain, or corruption by Shepard or the university. It nevertheless identified more than $360,000 in questionable expenditures during the five-year review period, including improper procurement, excessive travel, missing documentation, after-the-fact or self-approved expenses, and purchasing cards issued to nonemployees.
The audit specifically examined a university purchasing card issued to Shepard’s wife, former CIA officer Valerie Plame. Investigators found the card’s purchases were exclusively for university purposes and had been approved by the board, but concluded that issuing it to a nonemployee violated university procedure. The report also cited weak internal controls, inadequate oversight, policy gaps, and potential violations of New Mexico’s Governmental Conduct and Open Meetings Acts. Shepard later filed a whistleblower and RICO lawsuit on October 31, 2025, alleging retaliation over his challenge to a $1 million state allocation involving a campus charter school; those allegations had not been investigated in the supplied account. On April 29, 2026, all defendants except university board Vice Chairman John Wertheim were dismissed on legislative-immunity grounds, while the whistleblower claims continued.
