We’ve recently acquired original hotel and Pinellas County, Florida Sheriff’s Department police reports that substantiate claims of witnesses who have said Bob Cornelius who runs the campaign of Republican Albuquerque mayoral candidate Ricardo Chaves ripped off a hotel in Florida, refusing to pay his lodging.

Bob Cornelius was a member of the New Mexico delegation to the RNC in 2012, when he ran up over $1,500 in hotel bills on an invalid credit card and skipped the hotel before he could be forced to pay for the lodging or be prosecuted.  It was so bad that the hotel locked him out of “his” room (that he never really paid for)!

In the sherrif’s department report, officer Scott May went into detail about a grand theft incident where Robert “Bob” Cornelius, a member of the New Mexico delegation to the RNC, gave the hotel a visa card that was under the name Douglas Cornelius (Bob’s father’s name) and was closed due to “fraudulent charges.”  Hotel records and the police report also showed that Bob gave the Republican Party of New Mexico’s address as his own when registering at the hotel.  When Florida law enforcement asked the Albuquerque Police Department to drop by Cornelius’ address, APD informed them that this was the address for the Republican Party.  Sounds kinda like Bob Cornelius meant to defraud the hotel.

Eventually the Sheriff Department issued a closed incident report, explaining they had referred Bob’s case to the state attorney’s office.

This is only the hotel’s side of the story.  Additionally, Cornelius conned others into putting the bill on another credit card.

Document A (Pinellas County, Florida Sheriff’s Department police report)

Document B (Holiday Inn document)

More to come…

We’ve been urged to write a number of stories about the Albuquerque mayoral race and we’ll have a couple more stories in the next few days. Stay tuned!