Weld County District Court Chief Judge James Hartmann will handle the felony perjury case against Fort Collins police Lt. James Broderick.
Hartmann, a former Weld County prosecutor, was assigned the case Tuesday by state court officials.
Larimer County Chief Judge Stephen Schapanski last week asked the state to appoint an outside judge to the Broderick case because all of Larimer’s district judges had voluntarily disqualified themselves. Sitting judges Terry Gilmore and Jolene Blair may be called as witnesses in any trial of Broderick’s.
Broderick was indicted by a grand jury last month on eight counts of fabricating evidence and lying during the investigation of Tim Masters for the 1987 murder of Peggy Hettrick.
Masters, convicted of murder in 1999, was freed in 2008 after several hearings in which his attorneys produced DNA results that indicated someone else killed Hettrick.
Broderick was the lead investigator in the case, and Gilmore and Blair both prosecuted Masters. After Masters was released, Blair and Gilmore were censured by the Colorado Supreme Court for not providing Masters’ defense team with all the evidence collected by police.
Broderick’s first court appearance is scheduled for Monday.
