In a detailed and precisely worded letter spanning more than 330 pages – with more than 3,100 pages of additional exhibits – a complaint filed with three state commissions and the FBI alleges a wide-ranging and ongoing conspiracy within Colorado's judiciary to: Years to cover up It's about alleged lies, retaliation and misuse of public funds that began when an alleged hush contract scandal broke in 2019.

The anonymous complaint lays out how it alleges that officials, including Colorado Supreme Court justices, the Attorney General's Office and a host of other members of the Justice Department, intentionally misled and obstructed the ongoing investigation into the scandal and at the same time Additional investigations into other details uncovered went nowhere.

Two of those justices — Brian Boatright and Chief Justice Monica Márquez — must vote in November for 10-year terms.

“There is substantial and reliable evidence that Colorado Supreme Court Justices, Colorado Attorney General Phil Weiser, and other officials/employees have conspired for years to openly engage in a pattern of misuse of public funds, public resources etc. “The authority of their positions to unlawfully conceal evidence of misconduct by judges, lawyers and officials/employees,” the complaint states.

“This fraudulent conduct includes a pattern of intimidation, retaliation, and misuse of public funds (more than $4 million since 2019) to negotiate blanket waivers/non-disclosure agreements designed to silence victims, whistleblowers, and even other public officials .” .”

The comprehensive complaint was filed with the State Auditor's Office Fraud Hotline, the Colorado Commission on Judicial Discipline, the state's Office of Judicial Performance Evaluation, the Governor's Office of Boards and Commissions, the U.S. Department of Justice's Public Integrity Division and the U.S. Department of Legislature Tour of the State Capitol. None of these agencies, all of which operate in secret, have yet indicated whether they will respond to the complaint or what action they might take.

The complaint sets out various remedies, including the suspension, non-appointment or removal of judges, a conflict-free judicial discipline system, and new and fully independent investigations into the entire scandal. There are even calls for the disciplinary committee to be reconstituted over alleged conflicts of interest deliberately created to ensure the cover-up remains unaffected.

Copies of the documents were provided anonymously to the Denver Gazette. The complaint is unsigned and attempts to confirm the author were unsuccessful, although several sources said it was a former senior Justice Department official. Efforts by the Denver Gazette to reach that person were also unsuccessful.

Justice Department spokeswoman Suzanne Karrer said in a statement that the Supreme Court was not aware of the complaint.

“The court was not informed by any agency of complaints filed with the Judicial Performance Commission, the Colorado Commission on Judicial Discipline or other agencies,” Karrer said. “It is our understanding that, pursuant to CRJD 14 (Colorado Rules of Judicial Discipline), the Commission on Judicial Discipline will not notify judges or judges unless 'the members of the Commission have concluded that the allegations are sufficient to be treated as a complaint.' become'.”

The commission's work remains secret, even after it has told a judge that a complaint is being investigated. Only the results of public disciplinary actions under the current system – which only occur after approval by the Supreme Court – are made public.

Voters in November will be asked under Amendment H to change the way Colorado's judicial discipline system works, making cases public earlier in the process and stripping the Supreme Court of any oversight role other than reviewing appeals.

Several lawmakers who were sent copies of the complaint told the Denver Gazette they had not yet seen it and could not comment. Weiser's office said the same thing Friday.

Essentially, the new complaint describes how officials used money and influence to ensure that the impact of the hush contract scandal was minimized and limited to only the most obvious participants.

“The judges have empowered a corrupt system in which they select their own investigators, their own prosecutors, their own judges/arbitrators, and their own appeals review board, while acting as their own legislature,” the complaint says. “Judges have destroyed the independence of the judiciary by becoming a law unto themselves.”

The retaliation and misconduct impacted the lives, reputations and careers of more than a dozen people through forced resignations and firings, the complaint said.

Ultimately, the Justice Department's intention was to prevent investigations, whether by so-called independent investigators or state authorities, from finding fault or guilt on the part of someone wearing the robe of a judge, despite evidence suggesting the opposite, the complaint says.

It all started with the revelation that a former Justice Department official who had to be fired over financial irregularities instead received a multimillion-dollar contract, ostensibly to silence her threats of a sweeping gender discrimination lawsuit alleging years of misconduct by the Justice was supposed to be brought to light was either covered up or treated softly.

At the heart of the scandal — and the cover-up, the lawsuit says — was a two-page memo outlining the misconduct that the lawsuit would reveal, a document that the Justice Department initially refused to release publicly despite knowing of its existence was never released to the public auditors who examined the contract on the memo.

The complaint alleges that the decision to withhold the memo from investigators — it was only released in 2021 after a newspaper reporter requested the document twice and was denied — was made on the advice of Weiser's office and attorneys there.

The scope of the complaint is enormous, ranging from the Supreme Court's first public comments on the alleged quid pro quo agreement – the complaint says it blatantly violates the judicial code of conduct – to the use of fabricated evidence in the case controversial removal of a state senator leading legislative hearings on judicial discipline reform.

The lawsuit alleges that the cover-up came at a cost of millions of taxpayer dollars, which included: non-disclosure agreements with employees in return for large payments, contracts for independent investigations that were actually overseen by Justice Department officials connected to the scandal and ongoing appropriations for workplace culture programs aimed at further muddying the waters about what really happened.

In the end, only former Supreme Court Chief Justice Nathan “Ben” Coats was publicly punished for his role in the contract, a rebuke that came long after Coats resigned in December 2020.

Two investigations – the complaint alleges an apparent breach of the Code of Judicial Conduct – concluded that the contract did not constitute consideration for silence in the face of the employee's dismissal, despite evidence of the threat of a gender discrimination claim. Coats claimed that he had rejected the threat of lawsuit out of hand and that it had no bearing on his decision to agree to the deal, although he did not explain why he would agree to it in the first place under the circumstances.

None of the investigations found that the employee — the state court administrator's former chief of staff Mindy Masias — signed her own nondisclosure agreement before receiving the exclusive distribution contract.

Other key people behind the scandal, including then-Justice Department human resources director Eric Brown, who allegedly wrote the memo, have not spoken publicly or to investigators or lawmakers since the story broke, and subpoenas have never been issued for their statements.

A complaint filed in 2022 by a retired district judge with the disciplinary commission against the judges for violating ethics rules by publicly discussing the scandal was dismissed earlier this year without explanation.