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It's cops' turn on Villafuerte case

Lack of information and answers out of the police department just add to the puzzle in U.S. attorney nominee's contacts.

Denver Post Opinion, November 17, 2009

It is very difficult to imagine how, in the fall of 2006, there were serious threats to the safety of gubernatorial candidate Bill Ritter and not a scrap of paper was generated about it at the Denver Police Department.

Not a report. Not a memo. Nothing.

Yet that's what we are being asked to believe in a controversy about the accessing of a restricted federal criminal database and whether Ritter campaign aide Stephanie Villafuerte, who has been nominated to become Colorado's U.S. attorney, had any role in that action.

If there is no paper trail regarding the threats, however, surely the officers who supposedly were told about them — including chief Gerry Whitman — recall their nature.

Unfortunately, police have been unwilling to share their recollections. "Because we don't have any factual documentation on this case, [Whitman] doesn't want to speculate on what he does or doesn't remember," said Lt. Matthew Murray.

Doesn't want to speculate? No one is asking him to speculate. Either Whitman remembers the threats or he doesn't. And there is an important public interest to be served by his coming forward to say which it is.

The threats came to light long after the campaign, when First Assistant Denver District Attorney Chuck Lepley explained several cellphone calls between himself and Villafuerte.

Lepley said the calls were not about Carlos Estrada-Medina, whose troubling criminal history had just been portrayed in a campaign ad attacking Ritter, the former district attorney.

"I don't believe they were," Lepley said in testimony in federal court on Feb. 1, 2008, on a related matter. "I don't believe they were."

Keep in mind that the district attorney's office had, in the October 2006 timeframe, accessed the National Crime Information Center database and looked up Estrada-Medina's history to figure out whether he was the same person who committed both a crime in Colorado that was plea bargained and another offense in California. The accessing of the NCIC was done at Lepley's behest.

Also keep in mind that Villafuerte apparently had left a message with someone else in the DA's office mentioning Estrada-Medina.

Yet Lepley and Villafuerte say they did not discuss the case — with Lepley indicating the phone calls were about threats to Ritter and his campaign. Lepley described a "Romanian" who had purchased a handgun in 2001, had a website and had stalked a "prior mayor."

The Romanian had been to Ritter's headquarters to see Ritter.

Lepley also said he was the person who coordinates action when deputy DAs, judges, defense attorneys and political figures are threatened. He said his "first call" was to chief Whitman, then "probably" he talked to the deputy chief and three or four division chiefs.

Post reporter Karen Crummy could not reach the officers in question for comment.

It's important, we think, to get to the bottom of events surrounding the accessing of this database.

If Villafuerte is to become Colorado's chief federal law enforcement official, there ought to be a clear public understanding of her involvement in those events so that she doesn't assume office under a cloud.