GREELEY — An Oct. 17 search by Weld County sheriff’s deputies for evidence of identity theft at Amalia Cerrillo’s tax preparation office nearly destroyed her and her business, her lawyer said Monday.
Trusted by illegal immigrants to do their taxes and certified by the government to do taxes, Cerrillo was turned by the investigation into the “Typhoid Mary of the Hispanic community,” attorney Reid Neureiter said.
But Monday’s decision by Larimer County District Judge James Hiatt, who ruled the search was illegal, confirmed the privacy rights of Cerrillo’s clients — as well as the rights of anybody who uses a tax preparation service, Neureiter said.
“Tax records should be private, and just because you have a suspicion that someone filing records with a Hispanic tax preparer might be doing something wrong doesn’t give you license to seize 5,000 tax records and look for a needle in a haystack,” Neureiter said.
After the ruling, Cerrillo said she now may be able to rebuild her business. “My clients came to trust me, and for this to happen, it just doesn’t make any sense,” she said.
Hiatt ruled that Weld County District Attorney Ken Buck and Sheriff John Cooke violated the privacy rights of Cerrillo’s clients. He said those records can’t be used in the county’s criminal identity-theft investigation, dubbed “Operation Number Games.”
Neureiter said he expects lawyers for up to 100 people who were arrested to argue they were held based on illegally obtained information. Some people have been deported.
Deputies examined 5,000 records taken from Amalia’s Tax and Translation Service and say they found evidence of about 1,330 allegedly illegal immigrants filing returns with false or stolen Social Security numbers.
But Hiatt said that the search was overly broad and “was not a proper search. There was little the public could gain from this search.”
Hiatt ordered the 5,000 tax records to be returned or destroyed within seven days, effectively ending the county’s investigation.
Buck declined to comment after the ruling, but his lawyers indicated he will appeal.
The county’s investigation began last year when a Texas man alerted Weld County authorities that his identity was being used.
Weld District Judge James Hartmann already has ruled in one case that the records search was illegal.
Neureiter represented Cerrillo on behalf of the American Civil Liberties Union.
Joy Breuer of Greeley — an outspoken critic of illegal immigrants — said Hiatt appeared to be condoning illegal behavior in his ruling.
“He’s just saying bad people should be protected,” Breuer said. “To say our law enforcement can’t do anything about this illegal immigrant situation is frustrating.”
Monte Whaley: 720-929-0907 or mwhaley@denverpost.com
