Judge grants ICE agent access to info in Denver DA's files

By Rocky Mountain News, January 24, 2008

A U.S. district judge decided Wednesday to allow a federal immigration agent to have access to information in the Denver District Attorney's Office about whether its employees gained access to criminal databases for political purposes.

Judge John L. Kane ordered the documents be produced for inspection Wednesday.

Agent Cory Voorhis, 39, was charged by federal prosecutors for gaining unauthorized access to government computers. The U.S. attorney said Voorhis used the National Crime Information Center and Colorado Crime Information Center to look up the criminal histories of illegal immigrants who received plea deals from Bill Ritter when he was the Denver district attorney.

At the time, Ritter was running against Republican candidate Bob Beauprez for governor in the 2006 race. Prosecutors have alleged that Beauprez's campaign used the information provided by Voorhis for political attack ads against Ritter.

Voorhis' attorneys have argued that the prosecutors' office legally used the databases to publicly disclose information about an illegal immigrant. If it was lawful for the DA to disclose the information, the attorneys say, it shouldn't have been illegal for Voorhis to do the same.

Read the complete article.

Fair Use: This site contains copyrighted material, the use of which has not always been specifically authorized by the copyright owner. We are making such material available in our efforts to advance understanding of issues related to mass immigration. We believe this constitutes a 'fair use' of any such copyrighted material as provided for in section 107 of the US Copyright Law. In accordance with Title 17 U.S.C. Section 107, the material on this site is distributed without profit to those who have expressed a prior interest in receiving the included information for research and educational purposes. For more information, see: www.law.cornell.edu/uscode/html/uscode17/usc_sec_17_00000107----000-.html.
In order to use copyrighted material from this site for purposes of your own that go beyond 'fair use', you must obtain permission from the copyright owner.