DENVER—A federal agent acquitted on charges he illegally got information from a restricted criminal database to help Bob Beauprez’s gubernatorial campaign apologized to the former congressman for “utilizing” him, according to a letter obtained by The Associated Press.
The information ended up in an ad slamming eventual winner, Gov. Bill Ritter.
Cory Voorhis said it was he who initiated contact with the Beauprez campaign because he wanted to expose a dangerous policy that he says allowed Ritter to make plea bargains with illegal immigrants when he was a prosecutor.
“The apology is only appropriate, in my view, because I have felt that the nature of our contact and relationship through a third party in the fall of 2006 was mistakenly described as my being a confidential informant for you or members of your campaign. My view of the relationship and situation has always been that it was I who utilized the opportunity of your involvement in the public debate about immigration matters to expose what I perceived as a dangerous public policy,” Voorhis said in a letter to Beauprez, dated April 10, a day after a jury returned a not-guilty verdict.
In his letter Voorhis said he apologized to Beauprez “for utilizing you.”
Voorhis also thanked Beauprez for “having the strength, courage and selflessness to weather, in complete silence, a protracted attack on your personal character and reputation” for not publicly identifying Voorhis and backing him because it would have portrayed Voorhis as “something I never was, a political activist, advocating for you or your party.”
Voorhis had been charged with exceeding his authorized access to government computers, and prosecutors argued he had acted for political purposes during the 2006 gubernatorial campaign. He faced up to three years in prison if convicted.
A federal court jury took only about two hours to return its not-guilty verdict after a weeklong trial.
In a statement, Beauprez praised Voorhis as a “hero” and said he never spoke to him until after the trial.
“When criminal charges were alleged against Mr. Voorhis in October of 2006, I made a vow to give him every benefit of fair and impartial due process under the law to ultimately clear his good name. It was tortuous to remain silent as careers were damaged and reputations destroyed before ultimate vindication,” Beauprez, a Republican, said.
Voorhis’ also told Beauprez that the former gubernatorial candidate’s offers months ago to raise money and speak in defense of Voorhis were turned down by his attorneys out of fear those actions might be used to show a relationship and that he “acted for partisan political motives.”
The information taken from the criminal database dealt with suspects who accepted plea deals with Ritter, a Democrat, when he was Denver district attorney.
One of those suspects, an illegal immigrant facing a heroin charge, was allowed to plead to a less serious charge of agricultural trespassing, which allowed him to avoid deportation.
An ad run by Beauprez, Ritter’s opponent in the race, alleged that after getting that plea deal, the suspect was charged with a sex crime in California.
Ritter criticized the ads, saying they mischaracterized the case.