A high-ranking Broomfield official was forced to resign this month after admitting she brought cocaine into city hall, officials said.
County assessor Vickie Brown was confronted in mid-July with accusations that co-workers found a small amount of white powder, which later tested positive as cocaine, on her desk, Broomfield Police Chief Tom Deland said Sunday.
When detectives questioned her about it, “she admitted to having cocaine in the city hall building,” Deland said.
She was not charged with a crime because there was not enough powder to be sent to the state drug lab for proper analysis, Deland said.
City and County Manager George Di Ciero said Brown’s boss, county finance director Greg Demko, gave her the choice to resign or be fired.
She resigned July 13.
Reached by phone Sunday while she was out of town, Brown said the idea that her boss threatened to fire her was “inaccurate.”
As for the cocaine allegations, she said, “We’re talking about legal things here with that, so I have no further comment.”
Her husband, Danny Brown, who was reached at their home, said he had not heard the allegations before Sunday morning.
“I just can’t believe any of that,” he said. “I just think that’s a bunch of crap, personally.”
He and his wife had not spoken about the details of her resignation, and he said he assumed it was because “she was fed up, stressed out.”
The Broomfield Enterprise first reported the allegations Friday on its website.
Brown was considered a good employee and was not previously suspected of being involved with drugs, Di Ciero said.
“As far as I know, and by all reports, she was doing her job OK,” he said.
Two of Brown’s co-workers first became suspicious in late June, when they walked into her cubicle and “saw her fumbling with white powdery stuff which they suspected was cocaine,” Deland said.
Brown rushed the two out of her cubicle and “did her best to try and get rid of it,” he said.
But the two employees came back with a razor blade after she left the building that night and scraped traces of the white powder into an envelope.
One of the employees kept the envelope in her desk for at least a week, “not really certain what to do with it,” Deland said.
They waited until the department head, Demko, came back from vacation and gave the envelope to him, Deland said.
Demko gave it to police, who conducted a “preliminary test” that showed the powder was probably cocaine, he said.
Detectives questioned Brown at her home that afternoon. She told them someone she knew had placed the cocaine in her purse, and she did not realize she was bringing it to work, Deland said.
She did not say who put the cocaine in her purse, he said.
The admission and the preliminary test were not enough to file charges against her, Deland said.
Police did not find any further traces of the drug when they searched her cubicle with a drug-sniffing dog, Deland said.
They did not search her house or car because they did not have reason to believe she was keeping drugs in either place, Deland said.
Staff writer Nick Martin can be reached at 303-954-1698 or nmartin@denverpost.com.
