A county judge in rural northeast Colorado has submitted her resignation amid questions about conflicts of interest and calls for her recusal prompted two months ago when .
Sedgwick County Judge asked in her resignation letter Friday evening that her term end in several months and said that “I truly am sadden (sic) that it has come to an end much sooner than I had anticipated.”
Neugebauer’s husband, Larry Neugebauer, , becoming the head of the county’s only locally based law enforcement agency. The Colorado State Patrol also patrols the area.
Larry Neugebauer was voted into office during a recall election for his predecessor, Tom Hanna, who on suspicion of sexually assaulting an at-risk county inmate. Hanna is in the sexual assault case, including sexual assault on an at-risk person by overcoming the victim’s will, second-degree kidnapping, official misconduct and soliciting prostitution.
The investigation into Hanna arose, court documents show, after then-Undersheriff Larry Neugebauer raised concerns to district prosecutors.
Thomas Ward, head of the Sterling office of the public defender, which covers Sedgwick County, said his attorneys have been filing motions for Tera Neugebauer to recuse herself on every case they have before her.
She is Sedgwick’s only county judge and handles everything from civil cases under $15,000 to misdemeanors, traffic infractions, small claims and protection orders.
“One of the issues that compounds this problem on the judge end of it is there is no Julesburg police department,” Ward said. “I would say 90 percent of the cases, the vast majority of the cases, originate out of the sheriff’s department. They are the ones filing the charges. The only other law enforcement agency out there is the State Patrol.”
He added: “It’s not even a question. It’s a clear conflict of interest.”
Ward said Judge Neugebauer was not fighting recusal motions from his office, but he was concerned because she was not stepping aside in cases where defendants were representing themselves or had private attorneys.
“The concern is obviously, yeah, some people have lawyers,” he said. “But what about the people who don’t have lawyers? They are representing themselves, and she is married to the sheriff. It’s a problem.”
The Denver Post requested an interview with Tera Neugebauer through the state’s judicial department on March 6. She did not respond to the request and resigned on Friday.
Her husband told a reporter from The Post last week, in an e-mail, that he was too busy for an interview.
“Due to unexpected events that have occurred at the Sedgwick County Sheriff’s Office, my husband has recently been elected as the Sheriff,” Tera Neugebauer said in her resignation letter Friday. “I would like to take this opportunity to express to you how grateful I am for this experience.”
She asked that her resignation, “if at all possible,” be effective May 1.
Tera Neugebauer is one of seven “lay judges” in Colorado, . She by Gov. John Hickenlooper in June 2014 following the resignation of her predecessor.
Lay judges, who need only be registered voters and have a high school degree, are often appointed in rural counties where people with a law degree can be tough to find. The state’s other lay judges are in Hinsdale, Cheyenne, Jackson and Crowley counties, among others.
At the time of her appointment, Judge Neugebauer was a Sedwick County sheriff’s deputy. Before that, according to the state’s judicial department, she had worked as a police officer in Fort Lupton and earned a peace officer standards certificate from Aims Community College in 2006.
Oleh Sniezko, a private attorney in Fort Morgan who handles Sedgwick County cases, said he hasn’t had any cases before Tera Neugebauer since her husband became sheriff, but that he probably would “have to file a motion for recusal no matter what.”
Thor Bauer, another private Fort Morgan attorney who works in Sedgwick County, said he wasn’t as concerned. He said in rural communities it’s not unusual for defendants, judges, law enforcement, prosecutors and jurors to have some kind of connection to each other,
“I haven’t seen any bias or prejudice on her behalf,” Bauer said.
