“You guys can send somebody who is not Matthew Romero,” Regensberg says in the video, which The New Mexican received through a public records request. 

Then-New Mexico Livestock Board Deputy Director Darron “Shawn” Davis can be heard in the video during a call on Romero’s phone, saying, “Matthew, go ahead and arrest Mr. Regensberg for obstruction.” 

Regensberg, a contractor and rancher, filed a civil rights lawsuit in February against the New Mexico Livestock Board, Romero and Davis, alleging an “appalling misuse” of power from the state agency. Initially filed in the state District Court in San Miguel County, the suit has been moved to U.S. District Court.

Regensberg, 60, maintains the incident that evening and the criminal charges later filed against him marked a “conspiracy” on the part of state livestock officials to use the weight of the agency to ruin his reputation amid a long-standing grudge held by Romero. 

The District Attorney’s Office in San Miguel County filed criminal charges against Regensberg after the incident, although he was not arrested that night. The counts included unlawful dispossession of animals, livestock running at large and use of a telephone to intimidate and harass — all of which were dismissed “with prejudice,” meaning prosecutors could not refile them, in late 2024. An unlawful branding charge also did not stick.

Regensberg’s suit asserts the board pursued charges of cattle dispossession against him, even though he had called livestock officials and told them to pick up the stray cattle that had wandered onto his property. It says the agency also pursued a charge of cattle running at large, after state officials left a gate open on his property, allowing some of his own cattle to get loose that night.

Romero and Davis both declined to comment on the case.

Davis said he retired in July after 25 years with the agency, noting his retirement was unrelated to the case. 

Romero has also retired from the agency; the livestock board did not answer a question about whether his retirement had any connection to the lawsuit.

Legal counsel for the defendants filed a 30-page motion Feb. 16 seeking to dismiss the case, arguing the defendants had cause to charge Regensberg.

“In this view, Plaintiff appears to argue that his history of conflict with Defendant Romero legally permits him to obstruct the performance of Defendant Romero’s duties. No facts support that this unlawful obstruction was anticipated,” the motion states. 

“Just like any individual would not be able to choose which [state police] officer could pull them over for a traffic infraction, Plaintiff is not allowed to unilaterally decide which [livestock] Inspector would show up to a call,” the motion continues.

The dislike between the two men evidently started when they were teenagers or in their early 20s. The suit states the pair had once shared rides to bull-riding events at rodeos, but the relationship soured when Regensburg made a certain pointed comment to Romero.

The lawsuit lays out subsequent flare-ups between the two men, including at a Wagon Mound rodeo and at a state park in San Miguel County where Romero was working as a ranger.

Belinda Garland, executive director of the New Mexico Livestock Board, declined to comment on the case.

“This matter is currently before the courts,” she wrote in an email. “Out of respect for the legal process, we cannot comment further. We intend to vigorously defend against the allegations and are confident in our position.”

State police officers were able to defuse the situation that night and convince Regensberg to let officials onto his property after they promised to manage any conflicts between him and Romero.

Someone left a gate open when they entered, allowing about 20 of Regensberg’s cattle to escape. All of those cattle were gathered back onto his ranch, except for a steer. 

He alleges state officials later impounded the steer and sold it for just $75 at the Belen livestock auction without telling him.

In the motion to dismiss the case, lawyers for Romero, Davis and the livestock board say officials had informed Regensberg earlier in the day the cattle belonged to a neighbor. 

“Plaintiff refused to allow [his neighbor] to pick up the cattle and demanded that NMLB come get the cattle, even though he was told that the cattle were [his neighbor’s] cattle by a NMLB Inspector,” the motion states. “Plaintiff fed and watered the cattle, without consent of the owner.”

Regensberg said he did not turn the cattle over to his neighbor because the receipt his neighbor presented to him from a Valencia County livestock auction showed they had been purchased at 2:56 p.m. that day, while the stray cattle had turned up on his property that morning. 

“The invoice shown to him was for cattle purchased only minutes earlier at location more than a two-hour drive from Regensberg’s ranch in Las Vegas,” his lawsuit says. 

Legal counsel for the livestock board have offered up a different narrative. 

“By refusing to allow Defendant Romero on his property, and by knowingly herding, locking away, feeding, and watering [his neighbor’s] cattle, there was more than enough probable cause to charge Plaintiff with unlawful disposition of an animal,” states the motion to dismiss.

“I’m just going to go with obstruction, failure to comply,” Romero says in the lapel camera video, talking to two state police officers about Regensberg, who by that time in the evening had gone into his own residence on the property. “I can get him on unlawful impound, too.”

What occurred Nov. 3, 2023, could have been a fairly routine job for state livestock agents, according to the lawsuit. Stray cattle had wandered onto Regensberg’s land that morning through a gate opened by a family member who had driven onto his property.

Regensberg, the suit states, herded the strays into an enclosure around 11:15 a.m. and then called a state livestock inspector to remove the animals, following what he believed to be correct protocol.

Eventually Regensberg, according to the lawsuit, fed the cattle as the day lengthened and as no state inspectors had come to remove the animals. Regensberg was told Romero was the only agent available to get the stray cattle, even as he insisted the agency send someone else. 

The suit states Romero had previously accused Regensberg in a 2014 lawsuit of threatening to kill him, so Regensberg was concerned Romero would try to shoot him that night.

In the late 1980s or early 1990s, according to the lawsuit, Regensberg was riding a motorcycle on a park roadway heading to a July 4 family gathering when he was stopped by Romero, who told him motorcycles were prohibited from the park and he would have to leave. Regensberg sought to explain he was on his way to a family gathering and would only ride on the road. 

“Romero flared, insisting Regensberg’s motorcycle was prohibited and demanded he leave the Park,” the lawsuit says. “Regensberg left, which meant he missed the family gathering. After becoming a livestock inspector, Romero began confronting and harassing Regensberg at various events.”

It is not the first such lawsuit the agency has recently faced.

A suit filed in a little over a year ago in state District Court by Mike Archuleta, a Rowe cattleman, accuses the board of violating his civil rights by relying on false accusations made by a Texas-based rancher as the basis for seizing five unbranded calves from their home in 2023 and selling them at auction before the couple could prove through DNA testing the animals belonged to them.

Regensberg, a team roper, reflected on how the whole affair has hurt his reputation in the small communities where he has spent his whole life.

He thinks the power of the state should not be used to settle what is, in his view, a personal score. Bringing feed pelts out to the pasture on a recent day — the wind tearing across the landscape and tearing at his clothing — Regensburg said he had to sell about 30 head of cattle just to pay legal fees.

“It’s about accountability,” he said of the lawsuit. “It’s a matter of principle.”