Former Aggies AD Mario Moccia files wrongful termination suit against NMSU

Dec. 1—Former New Mexico State University Athletic Director Mario Moccia has filed a wrongful termination complaint against his former employer.

The 34-page suit , filed Nov. 21, was expected since his Jan. 2 firing happened less than one hour into the first official day on the job of President Valerio Ferme. The suit doesn't argue that Moccia couldn't be fired. It does, however, lay out reasons why NMSU's doing so "with cause" is a violation of his contract. The suit seeks payment of the $1.4 million remaining on Moccia's deal and other contractually stipulated benefits.

The suit alleges NMSU committed public record violations and also seeks the release of certain documents as well as compensatory damages and attorney fees.

NMSU Director of Communications Amanda Bradford told the Journal the school does not comment on pending litigation.

Moccia was AD at NMSU from January 2015 through January of this year. A graduate of NMSU, he was was an Aggies baseball player before a brief professional career. He earned a master's degree at the University of New Mexico, where he began his career in athletics administration.

In Moccia's tenure at NMSU, the department transitioned from the Western Athletic Conference to Conference USA with most programs achieving success. He's also credited with helping steer large gains in fundraising, helping stabilize the department's finances.

There were two highly publicized off-field issues on his watch, too — incidents, or the handling of, seemingly at the root of the decision to fire him years later.

In October 2022, Aggie basketball player Mike Peake and UNM student Brandon Travis, among others, were involved in a large brawl during an Aggies-Lobos football game on NMSU's campus.

A month later, Peake brought a gun with him on a team trip to Albuquerque and ultimately used it to shoot and kill Travis, who attacked Peake after the basketball player had snuck out of a team hotel to meet up with a teenage girl on UNM's campus. Peake, who was shot and injured by Travis, called teammates who had also snuck out of the hotel room, to retrieve the gun and an iPad before police arrived on scene to investigate the early morning shooting.

Peake, nor anyone else at NMSU, was ever charged with a crime related to the incident, though police made clear they didn't feel NMSU's players or coaching staff were fully cooperative with the investigation.

Months later, NMSU's basketball season was stopped when allegations of season-long player hazing came to light. Men's basketball coach Greg Heiar was fired as a result and he and the school settled his wrongful termination suit earlier this year, reportedly awarding him $600,000. The state of New Mexico also agreed in 2023 to settle for $8 million with two former players who were hazed, while other suits are pending.

NMSU hired internal and outside law firms to investigate the handling of those incidents.

Those firms cleared Moccia of wrongdoing.

The New Mexico Department of Justice also investigated the matter and in December 2024 released a 70-page report criticizing Moccia for not doing enough after reporting the hazing allegations to the school's Office of Institutional Equity.

Moccia's suit accuses the DOJ report of being "politically motivated and factually flawed."

The complaint states Moccia and Ferme had one 20-minute conversation before the day Moccia was fired, and neither the hazing nor the sexual assault incidents came up.

Ferme's decision to fire Moccia, the suit claims, was done not with full knowledge of all the past investigations, but rather based on political pressure and on that DOJ report, Moccia's Albuquerque-based attorneys at the Harrison & Hart firm state.

"Ferme did not fully review and analyze the Greenberg, Traurig, Lightfoot, or NMSU Office of Institutional Equity investigation report.

"If Ferme had fully reviewed those investigation reports," the complaint continues, "Ferme would have been aware that Plaintiff Moccia responded immediately and appropriately to the hazing and sexual assault allegations arising out of the men's basketball team."

The complaint notes that the NMSU Board of Regents indicated to Moccia in his termination letter that four contractual stipulations gave reason for a termination with cause:

—Neglect or inattention to the duties set forth in his contract

—Material, significant or repetitive violation or breach of contract or rules

—Failure to report promptly any known or suspected violation of rules by coaches, staff, students or others under his supervision

—"Seriously or intentionally" violated rules.

The complaint argues the regents do not specify how Moccia violated those terms of the contract because he didn't.

"Moccia could not have been terminated for cause because Ferme did nothing to investigate or make sure that the statements made in the termination letter were correct," the suit states.

Moccia's suit alleges Ferme, who allegedly admitted under deposition to having fired Moccia without ever having read his contract and therefore couldn't have known what "cause" he was firing the AD for, acted in the matter "because he received pressure from the administration of Gov. Michelle Lujan Grisham, including but not limited to, the Secretary of Higher Education Stephanie Rodriguez."

After the hazing allegations at NMSU, a letter from Rodriguez urged NMSU to stop paying any portion of Moccia's salary using state funds. NMSU, at least for a time, used donor money to pay Moccia's salary after the letter.

Moccia, meanwhile, still lives in Las Cruces where he is doing consulting work for CaringCent, a company in the collegiate athletics fundraising space, and he is a regular at his daughter's sporting events and at NMSU sporting events, including the recent UNM-NMSU basketball game in the Pan American Center and numerous Aggie football games.

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