DENVER (AP) - Colorado authorities have opened a criminal investigation into whether an attack ad run by GOP Rep. Bob Beauprez against his opponent for governor illegally used confidential information from a federal law enforcement database. Democrat Bill Ritter's campaign has suggested the information was taken from the computerized crime records.
But John Marshall, the congressman's spokesman, said Tuesday that the details came from an informant he refused to identify. He said the campaign is cooperating with investigators.
The investigation marks an ugly turn for what has so far been a relatively mild campaign to succeed Republican Gov. Bill Owens, who is prevented by term limits from running again. Recent polls show the two-term congressman trailing Ritter, a former Denver district attorney.
The governor has asked the Colorado Bureau of Investigation to expedite its investigation. Use of the federal criminal database for any purpose other than law enforcement is a crime punishable by fines and up to a year in prison.
The TV ad in question refers to Carlos Estrada Medina, a suspected illegal immigrant who was arrested in Denver in 2001 on suspicion of heroin trafficking. The ad says Ritter chose to seek a plea bargain in the case, Medina avoided deportation, and he was later arrested in California on suspicion of sexually assaulting a minor.
Reporters found that the person arrested in Colorado was identified as Walter Noel Romo and had a different birthdate than Medina, according to the Ritter campaign. When questioned about the man's identity, the Beauprez campaign said Romo and Medina were the same man because federal criminal databases indicated the two men had the same FBI numbers.
Ritter spokesman Evan Dreyer said the campaign tried verifying that information through public records but could not—raising the possibility that the databases were illegally accessed.
"We could not connect the dots using information available to the public in a way that made any sense at all," Dreyer said. "If we couldn't do it, how was the congressman able to do it?"
Arrest records are the only public information in the database, CBI spokesman Lance Clem said.
