Despite the concerns of Senate Rules Committee Chairwoman Linda Lopez about Corrections Secretary-designate Gregg Marcantel, the state Senate on Wednesday confirmed Marcantel for the job.

The vote was 38 to 1 with Lopez, a Democrat from Albuquerque, casting the only dissenting vote.

Marcantel, 51, who had been a deputy secretary of the Public Safety Department since early 2011, became acting deputy secretary at Corrections last August after his predecessor, Lupe Martinez, resigned. In November, Gov. Susana Martinez tapped him to become secretary of the department.

In a letter to Marcantel released to reporters Monday, Lopez said she was concerned that Marcantel, a career law-enforcement officer, hadn't disclosed a lawsuit in which he was a defendant. That suit centers on an informant who earned early release in exchange for providing information in a drug case. The man later pleaded guilty to raping two children. Marcantel was a detective with the Bernalillo County Sheriff's Department at the time. He worked for the department for nearly 19 years.

Lopez, in her letter, also said Marcantel hadn't disclosed two suspensions early in his law-enforcement career when he was a corrections officer in Lake Charles, La.

Marcantel told the Senate Rules Committee on Wednesday that he wasn't trying to hide anything. He was dropped as a defendant in the lawsuit before it was settled, he said.

As for the two suspensions, Marcantel said the question contained in the questionnaire he filled out wasn't clear. The question asked whether there had been allegations of sexual harassment or other "workplace misconduct" against him.

The suspensions took place when he was 19 years old, and he said he "knew nothing more about police work than what I saw on Beretta."

One suspension, which Marcantel said occurred about three months after he was hired, came after Marcantel and another guard made a deal with an inmate to move the inmate to a different cell in exchange for the inmate giving them information about the whereabouts of an escapee.

The second was for signing a petition saying that a trusty who was a shoeshine man was doing a good job. His superiors called that a conflict of interest. "I just thought he was a nice old guy," Marcantel told the Rules Committee.

He told the panel he had disclosed those suspensions in previous background checks for law-enforcement positions.

"I'm not a great guy," he told reporters after the hearing. "I'm a guy that's got as many faults as anybody else. But I am going to tell you what I am not: I am not a liar."

Marcantel said he didn't mind answering questions about Lopez's concerns. But he said he wished Lopez would have talked to him before sending her letter and news release to reporters.

He said the Rules Committee should change the wording of its questionnaire to make it more clear for future nominees. Lopez said many previous nominees had not had trouble understanding the question.

Law-enforcement officials from around the state attended the committee hearing to testify in favor of Marcantel's appointment. These included Public Safety Secretary Gordon Eden -- who last year convinced Marcantel to come out of retirement -- and Bernalillo County Sheriff Dan Houston, who worked with Marcantel as a sheriff's deputy.

Houston told the committee that dealing with confidential informants is one of the uglier sides of law enforcement, and sometimes an informant can go on to commit other crimes. He gave the example of an Albuquerque case in the 1980s when a police informant was behind the kidnapping and murder of a young woman who was abducted in her front yard.

Several senators from all sides of the political spectrum praised Marcantel. Sen. Peter Wirth, D-Santa Fe, said that Marcantel, who has been acting secretary for several months, had been very responsive to concerns of lawmakers.

But Wirth said the department will face a challenge, as budget cuts will mean the end of some inmate programs while the prisons will become more crowded due to passage of more laws with tougher criminal penalties.

Contact Steve Terrell at 986-3037 or sterrell@sfnewmexican.com. Read his political blog at roundhouseroundup.com.