CENTENNIAL — Arapahoe County District Attorney Carol Chambers took the witness stand Tuesday and argued why her office should not be taken off a case in which she is accused of hiding evidence.
The case centers on the retrial of Brett Wayne Sharp, sentenced in 2000 to 50 years in prison for sexually assaulting his 5-year-old daughter.
His attorney, Tom Carberry, says Chambers and former Arapahoe District Attorney Jim Peters hid the fact that forensic investigator Carole Abbott, who conducted the key interview with the victim in the case, had been accused of being an accessory in the sexual abuse of her own daughter.
Abbott’s husband, Paul, secretly videotaped his 22-year-old stepdaughter while she was in the bathroom. Court documents also say that he touched the young woman inappropriately. Paul Abbott received probation in a plea deal, but that was revoked and he was sentenced to six years in prison.
Carole Abbott, a forensic investigator at Sungate Children’s Advocacy and Family Resource Center in Arapahoe County, was charged as an accessory because her daughter complained about the videotape to her, but Carole Abbott didn’t do anything, records say.
Abbott was fired, and a third-degree assault charge was dismissed.
On Tuesday, Carberry argued that the case should be dismissed or that a special prosecutor be appointed because Peters and Chambers sat on Sungate’s board of directors and knew of the allegations but did not tell anyone.
Under oath Tuesday, Chambers testified that she did send a memo in January 2000 to defense attorneys that Carole Abbott was terminated, a month after Sharp’s trial but two months before he was sentenced.
“It looks like something that should be a big deal, but it’s not,” Chambers said. “It was one petty offense, and it had not been proven.”
In court documents, Chambers said she was not under legal obligation to provide the information to defense attorneys anyway because it was not relevant to any of the cases or to Abbott’s “character or truthfulness.”
In at least one other case, defense attorneys tried a similar tactic, claiming Chambers withheld the evidence, but were unsuccessful.
Still, Carberry believes that Sharp should be set free because of what he calls the misconduct by Chambers and Peters.
“He suffered tremendous harm here,” Carberry said of his client. “This (Abbott’s arrest) wasn’t exposed because it was so damaging to Mr. Sharp’s case.”
The U.S. Supreme Court tossed out Sharp’s conviction because of another issue, so it is being retried in Arapahoe County. Judge Mark Hannen will issue a written ruling on the motions to dismiss or assign a special prosecutor before Sharp’s retrial, scheduled for Oct. 22.
