Author: Christopher Osher
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Colorado officials accused of botching $53 million at-home coronavirus testing program
A $53 million plan to deliver rapid, at-home coronavirus tests to Colorado educators and frontline workers is in collapse, with the company the state hired to partner on the program accusing state officials of bungling the distribution rollout and placing nearly 1.86 million tests in danger of expiring. The company suspended testing services for the…
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Filing seeks to release mother jailed for criticizing judge’s order terminating parental rights
An Arapahoe County mother of three has been incarcerated for more than nine months due to a “series of confusing and unconstitutional orders” that barred the woman from discussing with others or speaking out against a ruling terminating her parental rights, a court filing states. Natalie T. Chase The orders came from former District Court…
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Court won’t require Colorado Judicial Department to turn over sex harassment allegations
The Colorado Judicial Department won’t have to provide documents about allegations contained in a memo outlining instances of judicial sexual harassment as part of the discovery for a racial and age discrimination hiring case, a federal magistrate judge ruled Wednesday. A Black lawyer had sought the documents in her federal lawsuit that alleges the Colorado…
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Colorado’s troubled partnership with California COVID-19 testing firm
Colorado paid more than $89.2 million to a coronavirus testing provider run by an ambitious 25-year-old entrepreneurial college dropout in California. But state officials abruptly severed ties with the company after federal regulators warned that those officials allowed improper use of the test in nursing homes with some of the highest death rates in the…
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Colorado ‘red flag’ law shows some success, but inconsistent use
The 33-year-old Denver man liked to strap three handguns on to his belt for his sessions with his psychiatrist and often made veiled threats, telling her once that she should take more care about letting people like him come back to her office. Police later found a cache of 33 firearms in his apartment and…
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State fraud hotline generates investigations that rarely see light of day
Colorado auditors have been investigating for more than two years whether fraud occurred at the Colorado’s Secretary of State’s Office when Wayne Williams headed it as an elected official. Williams, a Republican who lost his re-election bid for secretary of state in 2018 and is now an at-large Colorado Springs city councilmember, said he has…
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Colorado pays $406,000 to settle claims of warden whose pay was docked after helping bust guard in contraband scheme
Angel Medina, with more than 20 years of experience with the Colorado Department of Corrections, had at least two threats on his life for trying to clean up the illegal drug trafficking and other contraband flowing into the Fremont Correctional Facility in Cañon City, records show. But threats didn’t deter him when he was warden…
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Colorado’s judicial branch mum on details of alleged settlement between Court of Appeals judge, law clerk
Colorado’s judicial branch will neither confirm nor deny whether it has any additional records on the allegation that a Court of Appeals judge negotiated an agreement with a law clerk to prevent the clerk from disclosing sexual harassment claims, citing a provision of its rules that requires confidentiality for all investigations it conducts into sexual…
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Results of fraud audit into Colorado judicial misconduct memo may never become public
The Colorado Supreme Court this week handed over for investigation to the Colorado State Auditor’s Office a memo detailing nearly two dozen instances of judicial and administrator misconduct at the heart of an alleged $2.72 million hush money contract scandal, but the public may never get a chance to find out what the Auditor’s Office…
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Memo detailing alleged Colorado judicial misconduct, sexual harassment also describes sexist workplace
The memo released Monday detailing more than a decade of sexual harassment and discrimination allegations reaching into the top ranks of Colorado’s judiciary also described a tilted playing field that put women working for the judiciary at a disadvantage. And it documented the fight of a woman who long held hopes of becoming the state’s top…