Ray William Johnson: True Story Podcast - The Cop is in Prison Now - The Sheriff Jame Lujan Story

Episode Date: January 2, 2026

Sheriff James Lujan’s case centered on a pattern of compromised judgment and abuse of authority during his tenure as the elected sheriff of Taos County, New Mexico. Investigators found that Lujan repeatedly interfered in law-enforcement efforts involving Sage Hammer, a local fugitive, including warning him about police activity and attempting to shield him from arrest. 

Do you remember that time the local sheriff's department got into it with the local police department? Now, this story starts with this guy, Philip. And Philip, he's around 39 years old. He's living in New Mexico. And Philip, he's just kind of a terrible and violent guy. And he's also a landlord who's been renting some property out to some tenants. And one day in 2020, one of his tenants is a week late on his rent. And Philip, he's an asshole who isn't going to let this slide.

So he goes and he attacks. the tenant and beats the guy up so badly that he knocks out three of his teeth. Four days later, he gets into it with another tenant. This time, he beats the guy up and stabs him. So, of course, all this gets reported to the police. And now there's a warrant out for his arrest. Not only that, but police go to Philip's house to serve a search warrant. But when they get there, suddenly, blam, they hear a gunshot.

Then Philip comes running out of the house toward them holding several, rifles, and police yell at him to put them down, and he drops the rifles, but then he runs back inside the house and barricades himself in there. So now this search warrant has turned into a full-blown standoff. And police, they call in more units, and they set up a perimeter around the house, and they've got their guns pointed at the door. So now Philip knows he's in some deep shit, and there's no way he's getting out of this. But he does have a friend. He does have a who might be able to help him. His friend is this guy, Sheriff James. And Sheriff James is 60, and he's the local sheriff for that county in New Mexico. Not to be confused with the police who

are outside Phillips' house. The Sheriff's Department and the police department are separate entities. They are not the same thing for those of you who don't live in the United States. So Philip calls Sheriff James. I guess to see if he can help him out of this mess. He's like, Hey man, I'm surrounded by police. Can you help me? And Sheriff James, he's drunk. He probably doesn't care about the exact details of what Philip has done. So he's just like, all right. So Sheriff James's drunk ass drives over to the scene.

And he doesn't seem to be on duty, like he's not wearing his uniform or anything. But anyway, he gets there and he approaches the police officers, and he immediately tries to take over. Phil, check on? That's who you have a warrant for? Right. Pull everybody out. I'll bring him in. I don't want to pull him out.

Huh? I don't want to pull them back. Excuse me? I'm not asking. I'm telling you. I will bring him in. But the officer in charge, she isn't going to let that happen. Plus, she can already tell that James is drunk.

The sheriff just pulled him, and he's asking us to pull back, and he'll pull him in. But he's been drinking. I can smell that on him. So she doesn't tell her officers to back down. And either that officer or another ranking, officer is telling Sheriff James to leave the scene. Hey James, you want to get off the scene for us? You want to get off the scene for us?

Can you get off the scene for us, sir? But Sheriff James, he doesn't really care about protocol or what any of the officers are telling him. So he just stays there and hangs out and tries to get the police to leave so that he can deal with his friend Philip. And pretty quickly, the police officers there, they're starting to get pissed off at Sheriff James. They're talking trash about him.

Hey, what do you say? He's a fucking clown? Yeah. He's an idiot. This is my fucking county. I'm going to bring him out. He's a fucking pedal. I know he is.

But here's where it gets even crazier. So they're in this standoff, and it seems like Philip isn't coming out. So Sheriff James walks over to the police chief, and he pulls out his phone, and he shows it to him, and he shows him some text messages that he got from Philip saying that he's not even in the house anymore. So the sheriff is claiming that his. friend Philip is somehow no longer at home. It seems like he's just trying to use this to get the officers to leave. Like, see, he's gone. Pack it up, everyone. But the police chief, he isn't buying it. He thinks Sheriff James is lying, and that if all the officers leave, Philip is going to sneak out of the house

and escape. And police chief is probably right, because this sheriff is fucking shady. In fact, this isn't even the first time Sheriff James has tried to help Philip escape from the local police. Because three years earlier, back in 2017, Philip got the police called on him for something. I mean, this dude has quite a rap sheet of violent crimes, so it was something. So the local police started following him, and he tried to get away, and he led them on a high-speed chase. And Philip actually did get away. And what did he do after he got away? He called his friend Sheriff James for help.

And again, Sheriff James's shady ass is like, sure, I'll help you. and he drove over and he picked him up, and then he drove him to his father's house to hide out, which helped him evade the law. And for some insane reason that I still don't understand, neither Philip nor Sheriff James got in trouble for this. So Sheriff James has a history of helping his friend evade the law. That's my point.

Anyway, back to the present. Now, this standoff between Philip and the police goes on for hours. And eventually, Philip finally does come out, and he surrenders, and so bam, police arrest him, here's a picture of him. So now you would assume that this whole thing is over and now everyone can just move on with their lives. However, police are not about to just ignore this drunk sheriff who randomly showed up and tried to lie for his convict friend. And so now they want to investigate him. Specifically, they want to see what's on his cell phone because they think it has evidence of him obstructing their investigation.

So about two months later, police get a search warrant and they show up to the sheriff's office and they ask him to hand over his phones because I guess he has more than one. But Sheriff James, he's not about to hand over his phones. Instead, he actually gives those phones to his undersheriff, which is like his second in command. Giving his phones to his undersheriff will allow the police to search him but not get his phones because the warrant only allows these cops to search the sheriff. You have your search warrant says to search me for personal phones? He has the phones.

He already told me he has a phone. Okay. That's not the start warrant says, does it? Okay, so you want us to lock down the sheriff's office? So he's not complying. He doesn't want to give up the phones. He gave the phones of the undersheriff and said, search me, knowing that he gave the phones of the undersheriff.

They're not voluntarily giving him up, so we're going to lock down the building. So this becomes this whole showdown between the local police and the sheriff's department. And of course, Sheriff James's shady ass cries, this is harassment, like those people always do. But he eventually does have the undersheriff hand over those cell phones. But then they run into another problem. He won't give them the pass codes. We're trying to get you to comply with the warrant.

The warrant stipulates exactly what we want. You give us that. We get the phone. We're out of here. That's it. I'm invoking my right to an attorney right now. Okay. You understand that.

Take him. Come in. Book me for fucking. For obstruction. And so, bam, they actually arrest the sheriff. Here's actual footage of police leading him away in handcuffs. Also, here's his mugshot. Now, because all of this, police start looking into that 2017 incident

when Sheriff James helped Philip escape after that high-speed chase, and they see that nothing was ever done about it. And so finally, bam, Sheriff James gets to get to him. Sheriff James gets hit with felony charges. And eventually, he goes to trial, a couple of different times, actually. And he's found guilty, and he's sentenced to three years in prison. And ultimately, he has to resign from being sheriff. Good.