Steve Moore was doing his civic duty as a Magistrate Court juror Monday when he heard some testimony that raised his eyebrows in a drunk driving accident case.

A Ruidoso Downs police officer told the court that the other driver had a following-too-closely charge dismissed in exchange for a donation to the Boys and Girls Club.

“I looked at one of my fellow jurors and he looked at me and we were like ‘whoa, is that kosher?’” Moore said in an interview. “We never heard of anything like that.”

Moore, who runs the Green Child pre-school on Sudderth Drive, had his own reasons for questioning the deal being described from the witness stand.

“Here I’ve got the police department subsidizing my competition,” he said.

Whether the deal was “kosher” or not depends on circumstances not entirely clear from Moore’s description of the officer’s account.

Acting Ruidoso Downs police chief Darrell Chavez confirmed Thursday that a charitable contribution is sometimes part of the resolution in a traffic case, but only when a judge specifies it.

“There are judges who offer a deferred sentence in some situations such as minor traffic infractions,” Chavez said, “if they would be willing to contribute to a local charity or possibly assist the car seat program by purchasing and donating a car seat for children.”

Chavez said an officer may mention this possibility to a motorist and later file a motion to dismiss the case.

“Ultimately it is up to the judge to either grant or deny it,” he said.

State law does allow a judge who suspends or defers a sentence to attach certain conditions to the judgment, which can include a charitable contribution.

The relevant statute says a defendant can be required to “make a contribution . . . to a local crime stopper program, a local domestic violence prevention or treatment program or a local drug abuse resistance education program that operates in the territorial jurisdiction of the court.”

Lt. L.T. Chavez of the Ruidoso Police Department said he’s familiar with this practice, which he said is appropriate as long as a judge is involved and the defendant/donor is allowed to choose from a list of non-profit organizations.

But it would not be appropriate, he said, for an officer to tear up a ticket on his own or to steer a contribution to a preferred charity or fund.

In one case that made news a few years ago, the FBI investigated allegations that the Rio Arriba County Sheriff’s Office was dismissing charges on its own authority in exchange for donations to charities that included a scholarship fund run by then-Sheriff Tommy Rodella.

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