Arapahoe DA facing sanctions

Chambers denies she threatened a grand jury probe

Ivan Moreno And Katie Kerwin Mccrimmon, Rocky Mountain News

Published October 7, 2006 at midnight

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Arapahoe County District Attorney Carol Chambers is aggressively fighting the most serious sanctions that any Colorado district attorney has faced in 20 years.

Chambers, the first-term chief prosecutor for Arapahoe, Douglas, Elbert and Lincoln counties, is accused of threatening a lawyer with a criminal probe to help a fellow Republican in a dispute with a collection agency.

One of the key pieces of evidence against Chambers, legal analysts say, is a voicemail she left for Jonathan R. Steiner in which she threatens to convene a grand jury to investigate the lawyer.

Steiner was working for Central Credit Corporation, which was trying to collect money from Laurett Barrentine, a Republican Party official and Englewood City Council member.

Bad checks alleged

The collection agency alleged she had written bad checks but later settled with her without receiving any payment.

Chambers said Friday that the Attorney Regulation Council, which works under the state Supreme Court, is investigating the wrong person.

"This has always been an interesting case to me because the Attorney Regulation Council has been turning a blind eye to the conduct of Mr. Steiner," Chambers said.

But the head of the Regulation Council said their inquiry into Chambers' conduct is warranted.

"Based on our investigation, Mr. Steiner did absolutely nothing wrong," John Gleason said. "He had a professional obligation to report what he felt was misconduct by Mrs. Chambers."

The case against Chambers will go to a three-day trial beginning Oct. 23. If found guilty, Chambers' punishment could range from a private or public admonition, to disbarment, said Gleason, adding that the harshest punishment is unlikely to be handed down.

The last time a district attorney came under such serious scrutiny was in 1985 when former Jefferson County District Attorney Nolan Brown was convicted of having two speeding tickets erased from his driving record.

Brown resigned in 1985, and the Colorado Supreme Court disbarred him a year later.

Free legal help

According to the complaint filed in June against Chambers, Barrentine approached the DA for help during a political event in November 2005, saying Steiner refused to back off after she told him that an identity thief wrote bad checks in her name.

Chambers referred Barrentine to her husband, Nathan Chambers.

Nathan Chambers also is chairman of the Arapahoe County Republicans. He agreed to represent Barrentine for free.

A week before Central Credit dropped its case, Carol Chambers left a voicemail message for Steiner, saying he was using high-pressure tactics and that she had received several complaints.

In fact, there was only one complaint - from Barrentine, Steiner said.

Chambers went on to say that, "I am looking at investigating this with the grand jury, and I'd like to hear your input first if you'd like to make it . . . "

After receiving the message, "Steiner felt threatened and intimidated," according to the complaint. When Steiner told the vice president of operations for the collection agency, "She, too, was concerned by the District Attorney's involvement in what had appeared to them to be a routine collection action."

Chambers doesn't buy it.

"He is trying to say that he was intimidated, but the fact is he could not take this case to trial," Chambers said. "He did not have the evidence to support it."

She said Steiner didn't bother calling Barrentine's bank to confirm whether the numbers on the check were from her account number.

'Not a threat'

Chambers said her office was investigating various complaints from victims of identity theft who claimed collection agencies were hounding them to pay for checks they did not write.

When she called Steiner, she said, what she told him was not directed at him individually, but to other lawyers and collection agencies.

"It's not a threat," Chambers said referring to the voicemail she left Steiner. "I'm telling him what I'm doing. He specifically, and others in general."

The collections company was trying to recover money for two checks written to Wal-Mart - one for $192.15, the other for $128.17.

The counts Chambers is being investigated for include making "false or misleading statement of fact or law," threatening to prosecute Steiner, and using office "to intimidate a party in civil litigation."

Steiner would not comment on the Chambers case.

"I can tell you I'm an honest attorney," Steiner said. Other than that, he said, "I just don't want to get into this 'he said, she said.'

"It's a crazy story," he said. "I just happen to be in the middle of it."

'Incredibly poor judgment'

Barrentine said she is not close to Chambers and did not even work on her campaign.

"I wouldn't exactly call me a powerful person. We don't lunch together. I didn't go and have a cocktail with her and come up with some devious plan. I called her as a constituent," Barrentine said.

Barrentine said she was impressed that Chambers went to bat for her against a lawyer who wouldn't stop harassing her. She said Chambers was simply doing her job and deserves respect, rather than condemnation.

Former Adams County District Attorney Bob Grant said it's rare for a district attorney to face disciplinary charges.

"It's shocking," Grant said. "And this has to do directly with her service as a prosecutor. That's just clearly one of the things that you don't go near: threatening criminal prosecution in a civil situation."

Grant, who now teaches law at the University of Denver, believes Chambers should have realized she was barreling into an ethical minefield.

"It was just incredibly poor judgment, and for a client of her husband and a political friend. There are so many red flags here that just say, 'stay away.' "

Denver lawyer and legal analyst Scott Robinson said he has some sympathy for Chambers because she was trying to help a victim of identity theft.

However, he thinks she's in "a little bit of hot water." He said no lawyer ever wants to face a disciplinary hearing, but he doubts Chambers will suffer serious punishment.

"It's not going to ruin her career. She's not going to get disbarred. She used poor judgment in going a little too far. It was probably a well-meaning, but overzealous attempt to help an innocent victim," Robinson said.

Robinson said Chambers never should have threatened criminal action.

"She used two words that nobody, short of an imbecile, wants to hear: grand jury."

Carol Chambers

Elected in 2004, the Arapahoe County district attorney is no stranger to controversy.

• After her election, but before taking office, Chambers argued with the Arapahoe County commissioners for reducing her salary from $147,357 to $120,000.

• Chambers wrote defense attorneys in 2005 that an Aurora police sergeant's personnel records undermined his credibility in testifying against criminal suspects. The sergeant, Brian Saupe, had been found innocent of evidence tampering in a case prosecuted by Chambers before her election. A judge ruled in June 2005 that Chambers had done nothing wrong when Saupe sued her to stop the letters.

• In December 2005, Chambers accused an Arapahoe County judge of retaliating against her office for complaints it filed against some judges.

• She is currently one of the state's only high-profile prosecutors to back Amendment 40, the initiative that would impose a 10-year term limit on judges.

What's next

• Chambers faces a three-day trial, starting Oct. 23, before Judge William Lucero, presiding disciplinary judge of the state Supreme Court.

• If found guilty, her punishment could range from a private or public reprimand to disbarment.

• The disciplinary committee does not have the authority to remove Chambers from office.

• Legal analysts predict any discipline would fall short of disbarment.

morenoi@RockyMountainNews.com or 303-954-2895

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