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Attack ad's source questioned

Ritter camp says research illegally given to Beauprez

Alan Gathright, Rocky Mountain News

Published October 3, 2006 at midnight

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Did ammunition in an attack ad against Democrat Bill Ritter by Republican gubernatorial candidate Bob Beauprez's campaign come from an independent political group prohibited from coordinating with the Beauprez campaign?

The question was raised Monday when the Rocky Mountain News learned that information about former Denver District Attorney Ritter's plea bargains with immigrant defendants, which wound up in the Beauprez ad, came from an attorney that also represents the Trailhead Group, a Republican organization barred by state and federal law from working in concert with candidate campaigns.

Beauprez's campaign, the Trailhead Group and the attorney, John Zakhem, denied any illegal coordination occurred between the candidate's camp and Trailhead, a so- called 527 group, named for the Internal Revenue Service code under which such independent groups, which can raise unlimited amounts of money, fall.

Ritter spokesman Evan Dreyer wasn't buying it.

"This is, I think, a clear and convincing example of the Beauprez campaign illegally coordinating with a 527 group," said Dreyer.

Dreyer has repeatedly accused the Beauprez campaign and Trailhead of working in concert, noting that they share seven consulting firms, from a pollster to advertising firms. Beauprez and Trailhead officials flatly deny it.

This much is known: Trailhead Executive Director Alan Philp acknowledged hiring a Philadelphia researcher, John Wasilchick, to investigate Ritter's record on allowing legal and illegal immigrant defendants to plead guilty to trespass on agricultural land with intent to commit a crime, rather than to their original crimes, for which they could be deported.

Trailhead, which has run repeated ads accusing Ritter of being soft on crime, has paid Wasilchick $19,824 for his work this campaign season, according to IRS records.

Public records show that Wasilchick requested computer data on Ritter's farmland trespass convictions from the state court administrator's office on Sept. 7. Last week, the Ritter campaign, a reporter and the Denver DA's office requested the same data from the state court administrator, but no such request was made by the Beauprez campaign.

"I can tell you with a great deal of assurance that I have never utilized John Wasilchick for anything," Beauprez's campaign manager, John Marshall, said Monday. He said the Colorado Republican Party provided research for the ad.

State party spokesman Bryant Adams said the court research relayed to Beauprez was provided by Zakhem, the state GOP's attorney, who along with his law firm, also represents Trailhead.

"We were hired by the state party to provide this information . . . and then they turned it over to Beauprez for use in his ad," Zakhem said.

"Trailhead was the group that first determined that this (trespass) plea bargain was used (by Ritter)," Zakhem added. "I think they shared it with anyone who listened," including their attorney, Zakhem acknowledged. "That's good information. I'd be surprised if they kept it a secret."

Zakhem said staff members pulled court files on the Ritter plea bargains, and he doesn't know if the information compiled by Trailhead's Wasilchick was shared with his staff.

"The law says you can't have (a 527 group)expenditure that's coordinated. If I find out something negative about a candidate and release that for public consumption . . . that does not constitute a contribution to a campaign," Zakhem said.

Dreyer scoffed at the explanation. "So basically they're laundering the coordination through the state party," he said.

Jenny Flannagan, head of the public watchdog group Colorado Common Cause, demanded an explanation from the Beauprez campaign.

"It is concerning because we know that coordination is illegal," she said. "So unless the campaign can explain and show us where they got their information, it begs the question."

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