their is s long time urban legend in these parts that Rio Rancho, NM is a haven for The Witness Protection Program.
Rio Rancho is s town on the West side of the Rio Grande.
It was started a a planned city and aggressively marketed on the East coast, especially NY and New Jersey.
Lots of the early property owners were East Coasters.
So it followed that if you needed to stash a East Coast guy with a new life, put him in with a bunch of fellow East Coasters!
When I met the retired NYC cop that I mentioned in the other thread, he had just retired. And he was playing 'silly- villain.' He had hair and beard a foot long. When I asked, exactly which Of the Apostles are you? He laughed. When I asked 'Do you live in Rio Rancho?' He did not laugh.
He replied 'I live in Glenwood Hills!' A far NE subdivision.
One of the last times I saw him he was body-guarding Bo Derek.
And doing a very good job!
We only know of one Witness Protection low life who lived in Rio Rancho.
That would be Mad Dog Pruett. And he was from N. Carolina.
Thanks to Arkansas, we don't have to worry about him anymore.
But how many more of those guys are over there?
We will probably never know.

https://en.m.wikipedia.org/wiki/Marion_Albert_Pruett

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NRA LIFE MEMBER

I had a professional encounter with a relocated Mob sort from Rio Rancho - but he wasn't in witness protection. The place's well-known rep as a relocation hotspot makes it unlikely to be useful as such.

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How God has blessed us!

Montana gets a small collection of WP folks distributed all around the state. I once stopped one of them WITH his Marshalls Service handler. NO idea who the guy was. The Marshall badged me and asked for some discretion. Stated he was on duty with an individual "in his charge" and away they went.

The little town of Jordan MT way out east had a small Ranch owned by east coast mobsters...a cooling off spot for their problem children I guess?

I always recall the movie "My Blue heaven" whenever WP is mentioned. Wonder if that was how it was for a lot of them? LOL.

I thought they put all the witness protection cases on "A mountain top in Tennessee."

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6/23/2022

This is new to me. And I was was an Albuquerque cop and lived in Rio Rat-Hole for a while. I got a little smarter and headed to the east mountains. Then I got even smarter and retired before all the anti-cop stuff started.

I moved to Southeast Florida 41 years ago.
When I tell people that I am living here for 41 years, they
usually ask me how I ended up here so long ago.
I just look them straight in the eye and tell them,
"I had no choice. This is where the witness protection program
relocated me."
I do get some great reactions to that.

Stu

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NRA Benefactor/Cert Instructor

At one time back over 40 years ago, i lived in a small and near-rural community in far Western Maryland, not far from Cumberland. Under some unusual circumstances involving a local kidnapping, it came out that at least two persons living in the same subdivision as I did were in WP. I didn't know either of them.