The Office of the Denver District Attorney on December 4 posted an entry on the “Setting the Record Straight” page of its website to correct what it termed “a number of statements that are inaccurate or misleading” in a December 4 Denver Post article by Karen E. Crummy. The article reported that "[t]he Denver district attorney's office is under increased scrutiny" because of investigations into unauthorized access of a crime database. On December 5 the Post published a correction in its print edition and corrected the online version of the article to remove a sub-headline that the district attorney's office had stated was “completely false,” and noted the correction at the bottom of the article. However, as of December 7, the Post had not addressed any other parts of the article that the DA's office identified as “inaccurate or misleading.”

The Post article stems from controversial television ads Republican Bob Beauprez's failed 2006 gubernatorial campaign aired “questioning plea agreements” Democratic candidate and now-Gov. Bill Ritter made when he was Denver district attorney. U.S. Immigration and Customs Enforcement agent Cory Voorhis is being prosecuted for misusing his access to the National Crime Information Center (NCIC) database to obtain information that the Beauprez campaign used in the ads. As the Post reported, Voorhis' lawyers have filed a motion to dismiss the case, arguing partly on the basis that because the district attorney's office also accessed the NCIC database to obtain the same information, “Voorhis was the victim of selective prosecution.”

One of the points addressed in the December 4 “Setting the Record Straight” entry was the assertion in the sub-headline of the original Post article that the district attorney's office was not authorized to obtain the information:

• The sub-headline “Investigators want to find out why it got, without authorization, crime data wrongfully obtained earlier” is completely false.

The Denver DA's Office was authorized to access NCIC and did so in the normal course of business for a legitimate law enforcement purpose.

The correction the Post added December 5 to the online version of the article stated:

This article has been corrected in this online archive. Originally, due to an editing error, a headline indicated that representatives of the Denver district attorney's office were not authorized to access the National Crime Information Center database. In fact, they are authorized. [italics in original]

The correction in the print edition read:

Representatives of the Denver district attorney's office are authorized to access the National Crime Information Center database. Because of an editing error, a headline Tuesday on Page 1B said otherwise.

Aside from the sub-headline, the district attorney's office listed five other inaccurate or misleading statements in the Post's article, none of which the Post addressed. These statements include a misrepresentation -- which the office previously clarified in a November 21 “Setting the Record Straight” entry -- of certain statements that its communications director, Lynn Kimbrough, has made related to the case.

From the “Setting the Record Straight” page of the Office of the Denver District Attorney's website:

The Denver District Attorney's Office strives to provide accurate information and proper context to the public through the media on cases and issues of public interest.

Occasionally a story may misrepresent or misinterpret the facts. In those cases, we can “set the record straight” by making additional information available directly to the public.

Setting the Record Straight

On Tuesday, December 4, 2007 an article appeared in The Denver Post by Karen Crummy titled “More probing of data access by DA's Office.”

This article, including the headline, contains a number of statements that are inaccurate or misleading.

• The headline “More probing of data access by DA's Office” erroneously implies that the Denver DA's Office is the target of a probe.

The Denver DA's Office has cooperated in providing additional information to investigators who are preparing for the further prosecution of Corey Voorhis.

• The sub-headline “Investigators want to find out why it got, without authorization, crime data wrongfully obtained earlier” is completely false.

The Denver DA's Office was authorized to access NCIC and did so in the normal course of business for a legitimate law enforcement purpose.

• The article states, “Denver DA communications director Lynn Kimbrough said she most likely notified the Ritter campaign of the information on NCIC they found... ”.

What Ms. Kimbrough has said (and what has been posted on this website since November 21, 2007), is that she returned calls providing confirmation that a defendant by the name of Walter Ramo and a defendant by the name of Carlos Estrada-Medina were in fact the same person and that she provided additional detail about the facts of the Ramo case, which was prosecuted by the Denver DA's Office in 2001. No confidential or privileged information was released.

• The article states, “The DA's Office version of events has evolved in the past three weeks”. This is inaccurate.

The Denver DA's Office has cooperated fully with investigators in this matter. There has been no change in what the facts are or were. A factual summary about this matter was posted on the Denver DA's website on November 21, 2007. It remains on the website and has not changed.

• The article states, “When Chuck Lepley, senior deputy district attorney, walked by her office, she asked him if he could help figure out whether the ad was true”. This is inaccurate.

Ms. Kimbrough sought the assistance of Assistant District Attorney Chuck Lepley to determine if a defendant by the name of Walter Ramo and a defendant by the name of Carlos Estrada-Medina were in fact the same person to appropriately respond to Criminal Justice Records requests for information, a legitimate law enforcement purpose.

• The article states, “Lepley asked an employee to run the man's name through NCIC in order to find out whether the ad was true”. This is inaccurate.

The NCIC database was one of several tools used to try to confirm the defendant Ramo and the defendant Medina were the same person to appropriately respond to Criminal Justice Records requests.

[emphases added]

As Colorado Media Matters has noted, the Post also misleadingly suggested in the December 4 article that the Beauprez campaign ads concerned only illegal immigrant defendants. In fact, the ads concerned plea agreements with both legal and illegal immigrants.