June 11, 2011 07:15 PM UTC

Hancock Goes Uncooperative, "Edited" Proof of Innocence Insufficient

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• by: Colorado Pols

In a front-page story today in the Denver newspaper, the rapidly developing post-election scandal surrounding Denver Mayor-elect Michael Hancock becomes both much worse and, with respect to at least one important detail reported in recent days, the subject of an interesting disagreement between media outlets.

Chuck Plunkett and Jeremy Meyer report today that Hancock has “reneged” on a promise made to them just before the election to produce unedited cellphone and other records that would prove he was not a client of the Denver Players prostitution ring. Our read of this story strongly suggests that it was this promise to prove the allegations untrue in a reasonable timeframe which caused the Denver newspaper, and its TV news partner 9NEWS, to hold off reporting on this story between the Thursday when it originally broke online and Election Day. Needless to say, to backtrack on that promise of unedited records, demanding the right to “redact” information without oversight, significantly reduces the reliability of any disclosure.

Hancock’s spokesman Evan Dreyer asserts that the recent press coverage of the scandal, in particular coverage of the records request from the campaign right before the election, is making them less cooperative with reporters. But he also says they never promised to give up records without “reviewing them,” a point the Denver paper obviously disputes. Because anyone with more than two functioning brain cells already knows what the “edited” record will contain.

About the only thing in this story that you can’t describe as a disaster for Hancock, today’s front-page headline and nervous head shot being absolutely bad enough in the jaded court of public opinion, is one detail toward the end we do consider to be fairly important. 7NEWS reported Thursday night that sources had confirmed the documents with Hancock’s name and phone number do indeed exist in law enforcement records of the case. According to the Denver paper, this “runs counter” to what their own sources have said.

Because the existence of these records in law enforcement files would help confirm their authenticity, at least as far as existing well prior to Hancock running for Mayor, along with the many other names and phone numbers in the records of ex-pimp Scottie Ewing–such as former federal judge Edward Nottingham, who was forced to resign his position before his connection was fully investigated–we expect this question to be answered conclusively. Especially with major media outlets indirectly questioning one another’s integrity.

Something that does concern us, though, and we really want to softpedal this in the interest of not freaking our gentle readers out, is the, uh, funny business that has already occurred here. While it’s impossible to ascribe any responsibility for that incident at this time, or even associate it with certainty to this story more than any other possibility related to the infamous Denver Players, it’s just one of those things…that should compel smart people…to keep their eyes open.