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Hero or criminal? Candidates spar over ICE agent

Alan Gathright, Rocky Mountain News

Published October 20, 2006 at midnight

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Bob Beauprez described the federal law enforcement agent suspected of leaking confidential FBI data to his gubernatorial campaign as a courageous "whistleblower," outraged by his Democratic opponent Bill Ritter's plea-bargains for immigrant offenders as Denver district attorney.

At a press conference today, Beauprez said the agent was justified in breaking the law to exposed Ritter's "obscenely lenient" practice of allowing immigrant drug traffickers to plead to felony trespass on farm land, which the congressman claims allowed them to avoid deportation.

"Our source, in my opinion, performed a great act of courage and public service in bringing this story to the public domain," Beauprez said.

The candidate insisted he's fully cooperating with an FBI investigation into whether the criminal justice database information was criminally abused for a TV attack ad against Ritter. Beauprez refused to confirm whether his informant was Cory Voorhis, a federal Immigration and Customs Enforcement agent, but said he'd reveal the source’s name to the FBI.

The Ritter campaign slammed Beauprez for lauding a criminal suspect.

"It is utterly absurd for the congressman to claim a law officer who broke the law is a folk hero," said Ritter spokesman Evan Dreyer. "The congressman is trying to run a campaign using a different set of rules that cuts corners and cheats."

Beauprez, however, accused Ritter of seeking to "destroy the life and the career of a good man who blew the whistle ... on Bill Ritter' despicable policy of purposefully putting deportable criminal aliens right back into our communities, only to commit crimes again."

Beauprez rejected Ritter's demand to name the person who gave information from the restricted database. The criminal investigation by Colorado authorities and the FBI was triggered last week when Ritter complained that information in the Beauprez ad about a Ritter plea deal for an illegal immigrant busted for heroin trafficking could only have been confirmed by a law enforcement official.

"Mr. Ritter has embarked a witch hunt, demanding that my campaign release the name of our source," Beauprez said, "instead of explaining why it is that Bill Ritter put dangerous aliens back in our communities when they should have been deported."