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May 01, 2007 01:07 AM UTC

A "Jefferson County" Corruption Epidemic

  • 9 Comments
  • by: Colorado Pols


The widespread corruption within the Jefferson County government has been gaining more attention in recent months as one official after another ends up in the crosshairs of a criminal investigation. But Colorado apparently isn’t the only state with a problematic Jefferson County. Check out this post from “Doc’s Political Parlour” in Alabama:

In case you missed it last week, John Archibald of The Birmingham News wishes more people were outraged at the shenanigans in Jefferson County:

What do Jefferson County residents do when they find they’ve been robbed blind by debt, misspending, waste, bribery, corruption and stupidity? Nothing. They sit like lumps, still wondering if the county will build that dome.

As much as these things have been reported, you don’t hear of the citizens’ revolt that you might expect.

It’s hard to say who has the more corrupt Jefferson County: Colorado or Alabama. The latest news from Colorado’s Jefferson County is after the jump.

Former Jefferson County Treasurer Mark Paschall, one of the so-called “Kings of Corruption” (along with County Commissioners Kevin McCasky and Jim Congrove), won’t have his day in court just yet. As The Denver Post reports:

Former Jefferson County treasurer Mark Paschall had his arraignment continued for the third time this morning, until May 14.

Paschall, 52, of Arvada, was indicted in January on two felony charges of attempted felony theft and compensation for past official behavior.

He is accused of offering a top appointee, Kathy Redmond, a $25,000 bonus at the end of 2006 just before he left office and demanding she pay him $9,000 out of the bonus’ proceeds.

Redmond rejected the offer and told county officials.

Elsewhere, The Denver Post reported last month that Congrove and McCasky approved hundreds of thousands of dollars in bonuses to county employees, even though the county isn’t on very solid financial footing. If Congrove and McCasky hadn’t been so busy doling out bonuses, maybe the county wouldn’t have had to start laying people off. As The Canyon Courier reported last week:

Jefferson County administrators have furloughed two top-level managers, sparking fierce criticism from Commissioner Jim Congrove over the legitimacy of the move.

County Administrator Jim Moore apparently made the decision Friday to eliminate two high-level administrative positions – those of Jere Bower, support services director, and Judy Goebel, director of human resources.

Moore’s decision was part of a “streamlining” operation, Jefferson County spokeswoman Kathryn Heider said.

“With declining growth and revenues in the financial forecast, Jefferson County is looking at ways to cut expenses while maintaining a high level of county services,” Heider wrote in a written statement. “In the past few years, expenses have outpaced the county’s consistent sources of revenue, a trend that the county is working to reverse.”

She said Moore decided to eliminate the two positions as a cost-saving measure.

Great work, fellas!



 

Comments

9 thoughts on “A “Jefferson County” Corruption Epidemic

  1. Court documents also allege that there’s an “extortionate scheme” between JeffCo Judge Jane Tidball (a/k/a Jane Sciullo-Tidball) and at least one court-appointed expert, Dr. Bill Fyfe. (http://www.knowyourc… and http://www.knowyourc…).  The two are on the Board of Governors of a self-described lobbying group.  According to the filings, the scheme is manifested not only in that the expert has been permitted to engage in unethical practices and violate industry and state-wide practice standards/rules but, also that the judge has facilitated his actual or attempted fee extortion.  The Court of Appeals has overturned her decisions twice with respect to Bill J. Fyfe.

  2.   I think that one background factor in government corruption is Lloyds of London. Althought the Colorado Insurance commission search function shows that Lloyds is not registered, it does sell insurance in Colorado.  This I have proof of because I filed a lawsuit for events inolving corruption in Routt County.  Lloyds paid for the defense of the district attorneys.  I have a claim number and 4 pages of bills paid by Lloyds.
      One of the bills Lloyds paid was for an ex parte conference with the court.  They also paid to discuss “case assignment issues” after which my case was transferred to a different judge.
      I claimed government corruption in Steamboat Springs. As undisputed their former city council president Kevin Michael Bennett previously served time for possession of cocaine with intent to sell.  I suspect that he blackmailed the Colorado judge Joel Thompson who was investigated by the DEA because his girlfirend introduced a DEA agent named Sperry to a cocaine dealer. I think Bennett blackmailed the judge to declare a TRO on me to cover up Bennett’s building in violation of the developement code.  If you go to his residence at 701 Princeton Ave in Steamboat you will see 4 buildings but only one building is listed on the assessor’s roles, the last time I looked at their web site. 14th Judiciary district. Judge Garrecht then declared that I “molested” Jane Bennett.  That was pretty hard to do considering that she said there was no offensive touching and that she couldn’t remember interacting with me,  We never had sex of any type.  I am a married woman and I don’t fool around.  Her lawyer claimed that something bad happened on 8/29/00 for which I deserved to be legally restrained which in Colorado requires a beating, threat to life etc. The judge ruled that the only applicable claim was “molestation” .  Her witnesses confirmed that we were 30 feet apart.  So maybe in her heart I molested her but not in physical reality.  Really, I think Jane Bennett is unattractive and I don’t think she was attracted to me either.  We weren’t spending any time together.  Never can remember being alone with her. No one testified we were ever alone together.  Her lawyer Randal Klauzer said I molested her but she didn’t.
      Lloyds paid David Brougham to ask the judge to use force and intimidation to deter presentment in court. I spent 4 months in jail for representing myself and filing a civil action in the d of columbia.  I was told in court that I was not entitled to a lawyer and I was not entitled to an evidentiary hearing.  I wasn’t indicted, there was no government prosecutor.  I don’t have a criminal record at all. I wasn’t accused of being a security risk either. I was very polite in court and was not found to have committed contempt in the presence of the court, which is the only type of contempt on paper that can be punished without an evidentiary hearing.  If you are jailed for that kind of contempt the judge is supposed to file a report describing the offensive conduct in court but he didn;t file ay report. When I asked why I was in jail there was no response.  There was no term and no bail.  Witness intimidation is supposed to be a felony. I wasn’t accused of misrepressenting facts, misrepresenting laws  or perjury. Dave Brougham sent me bills including 25 itemizations for ex parte conferences. One bill from Anthony Lettunich the city attorney for Steamboat Springs was for a three way long distance ex parte conference with former federal magistrate Schlatter.
      I met someone who knew someone who sued the City of Denver for sexual harassment and she was reportedly told that they would put her in jail if she didn’t drop her lawsuit.
      I think that genocide starts with zoning violations and malicious prosecutiion.  With success at that, they move up to genocide.  I met a refugee in Canada and told him about Steamboat Springs and he said it sounded like Africa.
      One issue in Steamboat is that the city attorney Anthony Lettunich also takes private clients for land use law.  According to the city clerk he has no contract or job description. The Col Rules of Professional Conduct prohibits successive government and public employment on same issues without written permission of the government but those laws are just for show.  In Steamboat, Lettunich and Vanderlbloemen represented the Haymaker Golf Course at the same time it sought a taxpayer debt guarantee and Lettunich was city attorney. There is no reason I know of to believe that parties appearing before the city, mostly for real estate matters, are not simulataneously paying the city attoney.  The same man has been city attorney for about 15 years.  The former assistant city attorney Melinda Sherman told me that when she worked for the city, “Tony was the front man, the public face”.  Have you ever heard the term “front man” applied to a legal enterprise?

     

    1. Kay:

      Zoning? genocide?  Routt County? I don’t see the connection. This thread is about corruption in JeffCo.  Given the relative lack of interest regarding small-time court case handling in this forum, I was walking on thin ice to even bring up the JeffCo courts within this thread.

      1. Routt County and Jefferson County are both in Colorado and share the same laws, court system, bar associations etc.  Corruption doesn’t just spontaneously happen.  Under the “bad man’s rule”, some people do what they can get away with.  If state and federal controls on local government corruption are weak, then more officials are tempted to try to get away with it.  If they think they will be found out and punished, then the same people in the same situations will behave differently.  It’s like the way that people will violated the speeding laws more where they know the police don’t give tickets.  Once government corruption gets a foothold, I think, it grows exponentially.  Anyone in government who knows about one act of government corruption and allowed it is susceptible to blackmail.  There can be second acts of corruption to cover up the first acts of corruption.  Government corruption usually involves money. It takes the forms of a.) Kickbacks for contracts b.) Payments to allow zoning violations or to grant variances c.) Hiring of no shows, hiring of inferior people over superior people because of connections, d.) Voting frauds e.) Payments to prosecutors not to prosecute f.) Payments to prosecutors to prosecute the innocent g.) Arrangements to avoid paying taxes etc.  Of these, corruption related to land use laws probably involves the most money and may be the easiest to get away with.  In this country we did have genocide against Indians and ex slaves. It was not long ago that lynching was common.  At that time there were written laws adequate to protect them but the laws were ignored.  It is accepted that serious crime is reduced when minor laws are enforced and people see that.  That is the basis of the theory that stopping graffiti reduces crime. If everyone sees that all the laws are enforced then the population is more likely to refrain from attempting to violate any law. Also, if all the laws are enforced on all the people the laws are kept reasonable.  Genocide is just advanced government corruption.  I had a situation in Routt County involving government corruption starting with land use regulations and advancing to malicious prosecution.  I met refugees from Africa in Toronto and they said that is how life is in Africa. I read that for every $1 a government official gets through corruption, there is $100 in damages to the public. Local populations have limited ability to deal with local government corruption.  In places with local government corruption, history shows that one corrupt ruler replaces another.  There needs to be an infrastructure of effective courts to provide enforcement of the laws to stop it. If the prosecutors are out there prosecuting false government certificates, misdemeanor official misconduct, extortion, etc. the local government corruption will be stopped.  If the prosecutors won’t prosecute, then individual lawsuits will help but only if the individuals can count on all the laws of civil procedure being followed exactly as written. If the corrupt officials are able to bribe, blackmail, or “corruptly Influence” judges, then you have no rule of law and it is every person for themselves.  There may be even more government corruption in Colorado then you are aware of.  In Wisconsin, a d.a. was caught selling pardons. What I think is a real danger in Colorado is that insurance companies are doing business in the state without being registered with the state insurance commission. Government corruption is a serious risk to our way of life and our prosperity. 

        1. Either write shorter entries or use paragraphs. When I see a huge block of text like this I skip right over it and I bet a lot of other people do to.

  3. Corruption … in Jefferson County?  LOL!

    Still, it’s not nearly as bad as the Pena-Webb machine in Denver.  The corruption there has become so pandemic that Mitch Morrissey has deliberately turned a blind eye to it.

    At this point, I’d be for public execution of corrupt public officials. 🙂

  4. Aurora can share the love (fire chief shennanegans, blogger assistant city attorney fired, etc.  And Georgetown (stripper Mayor prosecuted for lying to cops). So can Arapahoe County (DA faces atttorney discipline, Tracy Baker).  And Denver (magistrate hits on litigant, city attorney steals computer).  And Douglas County (judge+DA=sex).  And Garfield County (the DA’s husband was just a contractor whom I didn’t have to tell accounting about).

    I’m sure I missed many of the good ones.

    This morning also brings us a dynamic duo that managed to put $5 million of Colorado tax revenues into their personal accounts.

    1. Do you think the government corruption is worse than before?  Did you know that Mexico;s economy used to be similar to that of the U.S. before they got so hit by government corruption?  It’s one thing to think that it is just raising your taxes but when it is directed to you, it is miserable. They call it deprivation of rights under color of law. If you think it is just one or two criminals hurting you you think it is isolated and that you can get away but when it is under color of law if there is no relief, you (I) feel hopeless.

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