ICE agent targeted in ad probe

Sources say an immigration agent used a restricted crime database to search the name of a man featured in a Beauprez campaign ad criticizing Ritter

By Karen E. Crummy
Denver Post Staff Writer
October 19, 2006

A special agent from the federal Immigration and Customs Enforcement agency is the target of a criminal investigation connected to an attack ad aired by gubernatorial candidate Bob Beauprez.

Cory Voorhis, a federal ICE agent based in Colorado, has been identified as the person who allegedly used the National Crime Information Center to search the name of a man featured in the ad, according to multiple sources close to the investigation.

The ad claims an illegal immigrant was given a lenient plea bargain by Beauprez's Democratic opponent, former Denver District Attorney Bill Ritter, and then went on to commit a sex crime in California....

Beauprez would not confirm whether Voorhis provided the information but said the person was in law enforcement. He said he has never met nor spoken with the individual, and his campaign never asked the person to do anything illegal or knowingly received anything illegal. Beauprez also said he had never heard of the NCIC until the current flap erupted.

The source, he said, approached the campaign and spoke to campaign manager John Marshall because he was upset about Ritter's plea bargaining with legal and illegal immigrants.

"He is in law enforcement, has a career in law enforcement and frankly had a bellyful" of Ritter's plea bargaining, Beauprez said. After initial conversations with the source, Marshall asked him for more information and asked several "follow-up" questions before finding all the information used in the ad in public records....

Beauprez characterized the source as a whistle-blower and accused Ritter of trying to destroy the man's career "for his own benefit."...

Voorhis, a registered Republican, has no public association with the Beauprez campaign and has not donated to either gubernatorial candidate, according to campaign finance records.

He is a veteran agent who, among other things, headed a five-year investigation of the leader of a Mexican crime family that authorities said controlled one of the largest document- forgery rings ever to operate in the U.S. The investigation ended in a 2005 federal indictment.

The Colorado Bureau of Investigation launched the investigation last week at the request of Ritter, who said he was unable to verify or dispute the allegations in the Beauprez ad through public records. The CBI called in the FBI to help with the "criminal investigation" on Wednesday....

Only law enforcement officers, federal workers and, in limited cases, members of Congress can request access to the NCIC database. Members of Congress can search a person's name only at that person's request.

Accessing the database for something other than a legitimate law enforcement purpose could carry civil penalties or prosecution by state or federal authorities as a conversion of public property for private use. In Colorado that would be a 5th-degree felony, likely punishable by probation.

Information in the database ranges from the existence of secret arrest warrants issued against people to all aliases used by a person.

The latter is at issue in the television ad. The man arrested in California on a sex charge, Carlos Estrada Medina, used the alias Walter Noel Ramo in Denver. Under that name, Ritter's office agreed to let him plead to a charge of agricultural trespassing rather than possession of heroin in a 2001 deal.

Ramo, or Medina, received probation and disappeared. Without a tip, or information from the NCIC, it likely would not have been possible for the Beauprez campaign to connect Ramo to the California case.

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