The mud has been slung and the gloves are off in the First Judicial District Attorney race.

Lloyd Drager, a former Santa Fe prosecutor, is using the community's most recent high-profile crime to take aim at incumbent Angela "Spence" Pacheco.

In a political ad in The New Mexican on Tuesday, Drager posed the following question: "Spence: How did you let accused double murderer and former fugitive Arthur Anaya off probation? You again have placed the citizens of Santa Fe, Rio Arriba and Los Alamos Counties at risk."

Police say that Anaya, 54, shot and killed two tenants -- Austin Urban, 16, and Theresa Vigil, 51 -- on Jan. 23 in a mobile home on his property near Rabbit Road and St. Francis Drive. Sheriff's deputies took him into custody after a four-day manhunt.

Anaya had served 14 years in state custody after a violent 1993 crime spree. Ten of those years were in a state hospital, where he remained until he was deemed mentally competent to stand trial, and the other four were spent in prison after a 2005 jury conviction.

Anaya was released from prison in 2009 and was supposed to be on supervised probation until 2014. But now-former Assistant District Attorney Wesley Jensen signed off on his early release.

Both Pacheco and Drager on Tuesday acknowledged the decision by Jensen was a mistake, and both agreed that it is complete speculation to suggest that had Anaya still been on probation last week he wouldn't have killed Urban and Anaya.

"But the problem is now we'll never know, will we?" Drager suggested.

Pacheco says the advertisement is a low blow, but not a surprising one. "I just thought 'That's Lloyd.' That's who he is."

Asked if she felt the advertisement was a fair representation of her office's role in the Anaya case, she said, "Absolutely not."

Pacheco said Drager and many people helping run his campaign have taken very personally her decision to ask several senior members of the staff, including Drager, to turn in their resignations after she was elected district attorney in 2008. Prior to the election, Drager was chief deputy district attorney under Henry Valdez, who did not seek re-election.

"Yes, she asked me to resign, but I wouldn't have worked for her anyway," Drager said Tuesday.

Pacheco said she will not stoop to Drager's tactics in the upcoming campaign season and will not approve personal or misleading attack ads.

She added that her 25-lawyer staff handled 7,400 cases in 2011, with an average caseload of 303 cases per attorney. It is unreasonable, she said, for her to know every decision one of her employees makes before it happens.

"I have to trust they are making the best decisions they can in each case, and when a mistake happens, I then deal with it as a personnel matter," Pacheco said. "That is what happened here."

She said she felt it unfortunate that a political ad got so much attention when over the past two weeks her office has had so many successes.

Both Rudy Salazar and Toby Gonzales received lengthy prison sentences in connection with the beating death of Steven Duran in 2010 in Rio Arriba County. Similarly, Matthew Chavez and Edmundo Rios were sentenced for second-degree murder for their roles in an April 2011 crash on Airport Road that killed 79-year-old Ramona Romero.

Two other men were bound over for trial following preliminary hearings. Ricky Leyba faces charges in last year's Cheek's nightclub shooting of two men, and Adrian Gonzales is charged with killing Victoriano Moises "Moe" Byrne Gonzales, no relation, in Pojoaque in December.

But Drager said there are plenty of other cases that highlight a pattern of mismanagement by Pacheco's office. He cited two high-profile cases against repeat DWI offenders. Drager said Pacheco threw former Chief Deputy District Attorney Charlie Baldonado under the bus when she blamed his extended medical absence for failure to turn in paperwork in time, forcing state District Court Judge Michael Vigil to dismiss the charges in the two cases.

Drager said he stands by the advertisement. "I believe that the failure of administration has reached a point where it has left the people in the district at jeopardy," he said. "It's a public safety issue."

Pacheco, meanwhile, said Drager's tactics are transparent and that she is proud to stand by the overall work her staff has accomplished since she took office.

"You simply wouldn't see the results you've seen in the past couple weeks if not for the work of the very dedicated and capable staff we have here," she said.

Digital News Editor Geoff Grammer can be reached at 986-3076 or ggrammer@sfnewmexican.com. Read his blog at santafecrime.com.