DENVER—Colorado state Sen. Ted Harvey, joined by nine of his Republican colleagues, is asking the U.S. Senate Judiciary Committee for an investigation into Colorado U.S. attorney nominee Stephanie Villafuerte’s role in accessing a restricted federal database while working on Gov. Bill Ritter’s 2006 campaign.
Villafuerte, currently Ritter’s deputy chief of staff, has declined to answer questions from The Denver Post about what conversations she may have had with the Denver district attorney’s office around the time the office accessed a restricted federal database to check on Carlos Estrada-Medina. He was an illegal immigrant who received a plea deal when Ritter was Denver’s district attorney.
Accessing the database for something other than law-enforcement purposes can be a crime.
Harvey of Highlands Ranch sent a letter to the committee Thursday.
Former Immigration and Customs Enforcement agent Cory Voorhis was charged in 2007 with accessing the database to check on Estrada-Medina and then providing the information to Republican gubernatorial candidate Bob Beauprez’s campaign, which used it in a 2006 campaign ad criticizing Ritter.
A federal jury acquitted Voorhis, who said he accessed the database with his supervisor’s permission, but he was fired.
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The Denver Post,
