Judge grants ICE agent access to info in Denver DA's files

Rocky Mountain News

Thursday, January 24, 2008

A U.S. district judge decided Wednesday to allow a federal immigration agent to have access to information in the Denver District Attorney's Office about whether its employees gained access to criminal databases for political purposes.

Judge John L. Kane ordered the documents be produced for inspection Wednesday.

Agent Cory Voorhis, 39, was charged by federal prosecutors for gaining unauthorized access to government computers. The U.S. attorney said Voorhis used the National Crime Information Center and Colorado Crime Information Center to look up the criminal histories of illegal immigrants who received plea deals from Bill Ritter when he was the Denver district attorney.

At the time, Ritter was running against Republican candidate Bob Beauprez for governor in the 2006 race. Prosecutors have alleged that Beauprez's campaign used the information provided by Voorhis for political attack ads against Ritter.

Voorhis' attorneys have argued that the prosecutors' office legally used the databases to publicly disclose information about an illegal immigrant. If it was lawful for the DA to disclose the information, the attorneys say, it shouldn't have been illegal for Voorhis to do the same.

• January 24, 2008

  11:18 a.m.

  Suggest removal

  Bradley writes:

  Another political battle over illegals. This is politics NOT law enforcement issue. Its time that politics and law enforcement go their own way; however, since many senior Law enforcement officials are elected, politics will always be embedded in the story. I read and article on http://www.deadfacts.com about a county Sheriff Dept. comparing how they enforce the law and Phoneix Police do not.

• January 24, 2008

  1:39 p.m.

  Suggest removal

  geriatric1943 writes:

  Heck, Denver is a sanctuary city and we want all politicians, especially the Democrats, who I think are leaving me behind, to open their eyes and start enforcing immigration laws. While they are at it, they should stop the Mexican Military from coming across the border and helping drug dealers.

• January 24, 2008

  9:18 p.m.

  Suggest removal

  gmingle writes:

  Politicians have long interfered with law enforcement. If they are unable to change the law, which could be political suicide if they tried (imagine a politician trying to pass laws to eliminate US boarders). Instead they defund and tie the hands of the law enforcement who are responsible for enforcing the laws, and protecting the boarders, thinking the changes would be gradual, and no one would notice until it was too late. Then you have the other political side attempting to make people notice. YES I think politicians should stay entirely out of this, and fund law enforcement as needed, and reward them for doing their jobs, and punish them for not!

• January 25, 2008

  12:02 p.m.

  Suggest removal

  Campbell writes:

  I would agree with Bradley that this has been about illegals but it stems from when queen Ritter was DA. The current DA's office no longer uses agricultural trespass to protect criminals. I think that judge John Kane has done the right thing in kicking over the rock to expose how the DA's office obtained information for Ritters campaign . This is what I call affectionately the DA's "honey wagon" that may stink up this cow town and embarrass everyone. Not good timing for a Democrat convention. The only way for that to be prevented, from becoming a national story is to have someone else (won't mention names) step forward and fall on that sword of corruption. No matter what happens Ritters political career is pretty much history.

• January 25, 2008

  3:02 p.m.

  Suggest removal

  Campbell writes:

  I would like to finish my previously comment, but I had ran out of time.

  I believe this never should have happened. And in many respects I blame Bill Owens. This pretty much started on Bill Owens watch. Did he know what Ritter was up to during those years as DA? We know Owens was in the back pocket of developers, but did he have any idea that Ritter was obstructing justice. If Owens had done his job, Ritter would not have become governor today and Cory Voorhis would not be watching his life being slowly destroyed out of petty vengeance.