Greg Kolomitz, the former campaign manager for Gov. Bill Ritter, will not be charged with a crime in connection with checks he wrote from Ritter’s inaugural account.
“These accusations and charges should never have been made against me in the first place because I didn’t do anything wrong,” said Kolomitz, a Denver political consultant. “But I’ve had a lot of good people stand by me, and I can’t thank them enough.”
Kolomitz — whose wife, Carla, sent out an e-mail plea to friends two months ago asking for help with hundreds of thousands of dollars in legal bills — said he felt “like I’m on my way to getting my reputation back.”
Arapahoe County District Attorney Carol Chambers’ decision not to charge Kolomitz came after a four-month investigation prompted by Ritter. In April, the governor called a news conference to blame Kolomitz for using more than $200,000 raised for Ritter’s inaugural parties to pay off campaign debt instead. Campaign-finance rules prohibit the commingling of those two funds.
The governor also accused Kolomitz at that news conference of improperly overpaying himself $83,250 from the inaugural fund. The charge, and the indication that the relationship between Ritter and Kolomitz had deteriorated to that point, came as a surprise to both Republicans and Democrats who had seen the pair as virtually inseparable during the year-long campaign that led to the election of Ritter, a Democrat, in 2006.
Kolomitz, who also worked for the inaugural committee, repaid the $83,000, saying he had used “poor judgment.”
Ritter, whose campaign had less than $12,000 in the bank, took out a loan against his house to repay the $200,000 and turned the matter over to three agencies — the Denver district attorney’s office, the attorney general’s office and the secretary of state’s office — to investigate. The latter two agencies declined to get involved.
Because Ritter is a former Denver DA, a judge assigned the matter to Chambers, a Republican. Her office put out a brief statement Tuesday saying there was insufficient evidence to tie Kolomitz to any crime. Chambers declined to answer questions.
In a statement Tuesday, Ritter thanked the DA’s office for the investigation and said the administration now considers “this part of the matter closed.” He also declined to answer questions through a spokesman.
During a nearly 20-year career in campaign work — mostly on behalf of issues, not candidates — Kolomitz has developed a reputation for hard work and expertise in state politics. On Tuesday, he said his focus was on reclaiming that reputation, and he declined to characterize his current relationship with Ritter.
Mike Feeley, treasurer of Ritter’s campaign and a former Democratic congressional candidate, was among the Colorado political operatives who had a hard time believing Kolomitz had committed a crime.
“I’ve known Greg for a long time, and I couldn’t imagine he did anything wrong, and I’m glad the district attorney confirmed that,” he said.
State Rep. Kent Lambert, R-Colorado Springs, who filed a campaign-finance complaint with the secretary of state’s office over the issue, said the failure of Chambers’ office to bring charges prompts more questions about who was making Ritter’s financial decisions.
“It raises the question, ‘Who is guilty if Greg Kolomitz is not guilty?’ ” said Lambert, who is appealing an administrative law judge’s dismissal of his complaint. “And we think Ritter is up to his elbows in this.”
Kolomitz has rarely spoken publicly about the allegations against him in the past four months — even after the case took on some strange twists and turns. On April 18, for instance, Kolomitz reported that his office on Colfax Avenue had been burglarized. There was no sign of forced entry, and the only thing stolen was his computer.
No arrests have been made in that case.
Karen Crummy: 303-954-1594 or kcrummy@denverpost.com
