President Barack Obama’s nominee to be Colorado’s next U.S. attorney has denied any involvement in the access of a restricted federal database to help Bill Ritter’s 2006 campaign for governor.
In a letter addressed to U.S. Sen. Mark Udall and forwarded to the Senate Judiciary Committee, Stephanie Villafuerte said the answer to whether she ever used information from the database for campaign purposes, “is emphatically no.”
Villafuerte has consistently declined to answer questions from The Denver Post about a phone message and a series of calls between her and officials at the Denver District Attorney’s Office around the time that the DA’s office accessed that restricted database for information about a heroin dealer who received a favorable plea deal from Ritter when he was DA. That man, Walter Ramo, also known as Carlos Estrada Medina, went on to molest a child in California, and became the subject of campaign ads from Ritter’s 2006 opponent, Bob Beauprez.
But in her letter, released late Thursday night by Udall’s office, Villafuerte says she did not seek to get the DA’s office to access the database, called the National Crime Information Center (NCIC), and that she received no information from that database.
“Was I honest when I told the FBI that I did not have conversations with anyone at the Denver District Attorney’s Office …regarding the Ramo/Estrada Medina case?,” Villafuerte wrote. “The answer is absolutely yes.”
When investigating an immigration agent who accessed the NCIC and provided information to the Beauprez campaign, the FBI interviewed Villafuerte, but apparently never asked her about a phone message she left for the DA’s office spokesperson about Ramo/Estrada Medina, or about phone records showing calls between Villafuerte’s cell phone and cell phones belonging to the spokesperson, Lynn Kimbrough, and First Assistant DA Chuck Lepley.
One of those calls, between Lepley and Villafuerte shortly before the DA’s office accessed the NCIC to inquire about Ramo, lasted 14 minutes. In her letter to the committee, Villafuerte said she could not remember what was discussed.
“Three years later, I do not recall the substance of the longer call,” wrote Villafuerte, who is now Ritter’s deputy chief of staff. She suggested it might have been about office matters or other issues.
Her statement was attached to a letter to the judiciary committee signed by both Udall and U.S. Sen. Michael Bennet.
“It is our belief that Ms. Villafuerte’s letter will assist the Committee in bringing closure to any questions that have been raised about her role in Gov. Ritter’s 2006 campaign, her interactions with the Denver District Attorney’s Office, and her subsequent interviews with federal authorities,” the letter said.
The judiciary committee has not scheduled Villafuerte for a hearing, but U.S. Attorney confirmations are routinely processed without one.
In her letter to Udall, Villafuerte said she would be willing to answer any additional questions the committee might have for her.
After the Beauprez ads ran in 2006, immigration agent Cory Voorhis was put on leave and later prosecuted in federal court for running Ramo through the NCIC and giving information to the Beauprez campaign. A federal jury acquitted him.
He has since been fired from his job, but is appealing his termination.
