Under normal circumstances, the public never would have heard the name of Special Agent Cory Voorhis – unless it was mentioned in conjunction with an immigration bust.
But Voorhis, a veteran Immigration and Customs Enforcement agent, has suddenly catapulted into the limelight for using a federal crime database for non-law-enforcement purposes.
Similar cases have been taken seriously in the past, and at times employees have been fired, according to the Colorado Bureau of Investigation.
But the issue is generally considered a personnel matter.
“It’s usually an internal process that results in disciplinary action,” said CBI spokesman Lance Clem. “It’s not that uncommon.”
Voorhis, however, is the target of a criminal investigation into whether he accessed the National Crime Information Center computer to help the gubernatorial campaign of Republican Bob Beauprez.
He’s also become the central issue in the Colorado race for governor, being portrayed on one side as a heroic whistle-blower and on the other as a law enforcement officer whose abuse of the system turned him into a criminal.
Although Beauprez has declined to disclose his source’s name, on Friday he continued to praise as a hero the person who supplied his campaign with information about plea bargains extended by Democrat Bill Ritter during his years as Denver district attorney. He performed “a great act of courage,” the congressman said.
Meanwhile, after a week of daily demands that Beauprez disclose the source of his information, the Ritter campaign said little about the matter Friday.
“Obviously, the FBI is conducting an investigation, and we are staying out of the way,” said Ritter campaign manager Greg Kolomitz. “We are focused on campaigning.”
Ritter was in Colorado Springs and headed southwest over the weekend.
Voorhis, who has been confirmed as Beauprez’s source by several people close to the investigation, again declined to comment.
The controversy began a week ago after Beauprez’s campaign ran a television advertisement that said Ritter’s office freed an illegal immigrant by converting a drug charge into the crime of “trespassing on agricultural land with intent to commit a felony.”
In the ad, Beauprez’s campaign says a man who used the name Walter Noel Ramo was able to plead a 2001 possession of heroin charge into the agricultural crime. He received probation and disappeared. The ad says he then went on to commit a sex crime against a child in California.
Ritter’s campaign has said it has been unable to independently verify whether the ad was true. Eventually, the former DA declared that the only way Beauprez’s campaign could have known Ramo was the same man who committed the California crime was if it had received information “illegally” obtained from the NCIC.
Ritter demanded a criminal investigation, and Gov. Bill Owens, a Republican, obliged, asking the CBI to expedite its search for the source of the information.
After Voorhis’ name was first revealed as the possible source Thursday night in a story posted online by The Denver Post, Beauprez, who had been repeatedly excoriated by Ritter for refusing to reveal his source’s identity, went on the offensive.
The congressman tried to turn the tables on Ritter, accusing him of a “witch hunt” against an “American hero” and of trying to divert attention from his “despicable record” as district attorney.
Ritter has repeatedly said that the agricultural trespass cases were less than 1 percent of the cases he handled while in office.
Ritter campaign chief Kolomitz called Beauprez, who is running ads asking that he be held accountable, a hypocrite for refusing to take responsibility for the information in his advertisements.
Staff writer Chris Frates contributed to this report.
Staff writer Karen Crummy can be reached at 303-954-1594 or kcrummy@denverpost.com.
