October 16, 2007 01:46 AM UTC

Paschall Trial Begins This Week

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• by: Colorado Pols

Former Jefferson County Treasurer Mark Paschall goes on trial this week on charges that the Republican official solicited a kickback from a former employee. As the Rocky Mountain News reports:

The former state lawmaker faces two felony charges for allegedly asking a top aide last year to give him a $9,000 cut of a $25,000 bonus he had approved. Paschall, 53, was indicted by a Jefferson County grand jury in January…

…Kathy Redmond, a longtime acquaintance whom Paschall hired as his administrative coordinator in 2003, alerted authorities after she said he tried to get her to go along with the kickback scheme.

Redmond and other county officials will be witnesses at the trial, which is expected to conclude by the end of the week.

The evidence includes a taped conversation in which Paschall appears to have solicited the money. In the tape, Paschall told Redmond that the bonus would amount to $18,000 after taxes and he expected her to give him half, according to the indictment.

Redmond told Paschall that she wanted “no part of his offer” and warned he would be criticized for paying her a bonus that amounted to almost half her annual salary, the indictment said.

Redmond’s bonus was nearly half of $50,000 in bonuses Paschall doled out as he left office.

A fiscal conservative who promised to keep an eye on taxpayer dollars, Paschall was defeated for a second term in August 2006.

Paschall is one of three Republican officials in Jefferson County also known as the “Three Kings of Corruption.” Along with Commissioners Kevin McCasky and Jim Congrove, who have a litany of abuses in their own right, the three officials ran amok for years at the Taj Mahal with little media coverage to keep them (relatively) honest until more attention has been paid in recent months.