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A Reversal Of Fortune - Cory Voorhis And The Government Prosecutors

Editorial – Glendale Cherry Creek Chronicle, May 16, 2008

In an editorial in January of this year (“The Nifonging of Cory Voorhis”) we opined that ICE agent Cory Voorhis was being wrongfully prosecuted by the U.S. Attorney’s office for simply checking a computer base to reveal wrongdoing by Denver District Attorney (now Governor) Bill Ritter. The jury in Federal District Court in Denver apparently came to the same conclusion, as they acquitted Cory Voorhis of all charges in less than two hours of deliberation to the jubilatory cheering of the crowd in the packed federal courtroom.

Oscar Wilde once famously said that “all trials are trials for your life” regardless of what is actually being tried. That certainly was the case for Cory Voorhis. Even though the charges brought by the federal government were for minor misdemeanors normally handled at most at the administrative level, the federal government was in fact out to destroy one of its own agents. Voorhis had been suspended without pay by ICE, lost his health insurance for himself, his wife and their young children and he was saddled with over $300,000 in legal bills regardless of whether he was found innocent or not.

But at the extraordinary trial before a jury of Mr. Voorhis’ peers, it was also the case that the reputations of prosecutors for the U.S. Attorney’s Office and the City and County of Denver were on the docket. The quick and decisive verdict by the jury not only acted as a triumphant vindication for Cory Voorhis, but also served as a bereavement notice for personal reputations of the prosecutors.

When Assistant U.S. Attorneys for Wyoming Greg Phillip and James Anderson left the courtroom after the verdict, the crowd hissed and quietly heckled them. Muffled cries of “go back to Wyoming,” “government garbage,” “sleazy hack lawyers” were hurled at the disgraced federal prosecutors much to their apparent surprise.

Surprised they should not have been. Halfway through the trial the government’s own witness described Voorhis’ actions as simply an effort to disclose corruption in Ritter’s office. But the crowning blow may have been when the government put on the stand fellow ICE agent Judith Jordan to disclose a conversation she had with Voorhis at an ICE office.

On cross Jordan revealed that it was not Voorhis’ statements that gave her a real heartburn, but rather her pre-trial conversations with the Assistant U.S. Attorney James Anderson. She related that she had told Anderson that her FBI interview report was in many instances wrong or possibly deliberately false. Worse still, the U.S. Attorneys’ office had based a key motion on the false report. She testified that Anderson, when he was apprised of the inaccuracies, simply started wagging his finger in her face at her telling her that he didn’t care. She did care — very much.

The Assistant U.S. Attorneys’ demeanor in front of the jury during the trial had been a strange obsequious mincing about the courtroom in a vain attempt to portray themselves to the jury as “nice guys.” But it was clear to everyone in the courtroom from Jordan’s testimony that Anderson acted as little more than a strong arm prosecutor in the Voorhis matter who cared little about the truth and was willing to do just about anything to gain a conviction. Because of her testimony it became increasing obvious to the jury that Voorhis was anything but a criminal, but simply a government agent who was just trying to do his job, while the prosecutors were the ones with a political agenda.

But as bad as the trial was for the U.S. Attorney’s office it was worse for former Denver D.A. and now Governor Bill Ritter. Voorhis’ attorney William Taylor declared in the opening statement that he would put the actions of Bill Ritter and the city of Denver on trial and that he did. Ritter clearly was far from truthful when he publicly bragged as part of his political campaign for the governor’s office that he was tough on illegal immigrants when they committed serious crimes. Instead it was the mirror opposite as Voorhis factually revealed.

Even more damning, the trial showed that Ritter, who also tries hard to appear as a “nice guy” in public, could be a petty and highly vindictive man when someone tries to reveal the truth about his wrongful actions. It was obvious from the testimony that it was former D.A. Ritter who was really the one that wanted Cory Voorhis’ head on a pole. But it was not to be.

At the Voorhis trial the hunter prosecutors found themselves becoming the hunted. That reversal of fortune will likely not end anytime in the near future concerning the Cory Voorhis matter.