An allegation of harassment made nearly eight years ago against Colorado Supreme Court Judge Richard Gabriel, then judge of the state’s Court of Appeals, by a newly hired registrar was resolved quickly and quietly, according to two people with knowledge of the settlement, essentially guaranteeing it would not tarnish your chance in the upper court.
To safeguard this secrecy, the Colorado Judicial Department had the appellate clerk who filed the charge in September 2013 – then a 34-year-old girl who had been out of Ivy League law school for a year – sign a plea agreement. secrecy that kept her on the payroll for a year in exchange for her promise not to sue, the sources confirmed to The Denver Post.
The woman claimed that the judge and a court clerk created an uncomfortable work environment for her shortly after her arrival in August 2013, the sources said.
In an e-mail to The Post, Gabriel said that “any suggestion that I was involved in any form of harassment of anyone, at any time, is false.”
At the time, Gabriel hired the woman to work for him as a court clerk, he was a candidate for a vacancy at the Supreme Court.
An internal investigation by the department was inconclusive on the woman’s allegations. The release agreement she signed was reportedly approved by a chief justice and did not reach the Supreme Court’s Nominating Committee.
The claim that the release agreement was designed to keep Gabriel “safe” during the Supreme Court nomination process is part of a two-page memo at the center of a scandal over a $ 2.5 million contract awarded to a former department employee. That authority, Mindy Masias, was prepared to file a sex discrimination case if she was dismissed for financial irregularities.
Who conducted the investigation into the woman’s complaint is unclear. Masias was the department’s human resources director at the time.
The woman left the department before her one-year contract was terminated, but continued to be paid for the full period, according to the sources, who refused to be identified because they could be punished for publicly discussing the confidential matter. Another law employee replaced the woman on Gabriel’s team in December 2013, she told the Post in an interview and one of the sources confirmed it.
The Judicial Department has refused repeated requests from the Denver Post for a copy of the agreement under the judiciary’s open registration rules, saying that internal staff investigations and sexual harassment complaints and investigations are protected from disclosure.
Steven Zansberg, a lawyer for The Post’s 1st Amendment, argued that liquidation agreements between former government officials in all branches of government and their former government employers are routinely declared as public records – even in cases where allegations of sexual harassment are in question.
The ex-clerk received about $ 50,400 in total, payroll records confirm, the standard annual salary of an appellate clerk at the state Court of Appeals.
The details of the conduct that led the woman to complain are unclear, but one of the sources described the alleged harassment as “a 2 on a scale of 1 to 10” and, at bottom, a misunderstanding about what was said.
The deal was intended “not to ruin her career, leave it behind and (allow her) to move on,” said the person, refusing to give details. “Basically, it wasn’t what she signed up for. It was not a good fit. It was a very uncomfortable situation for her. “
The ex-clerk, now a labor lawyer outside Colorado, did not respond to repeated post and telephone messages from The Post. The newspaper does not name the alleged victims of harassment without their permission, but sources have confirmed their identity and the judicial department’s records confirm their employment.
The clerk involved, now a private lawyer, confirmed that a department investigation was conducted.
“I was interviewed as part of an internal investigation and, during that process, I was specifically informed by the investigator that no allegations of inappropriate conduct had been made against me,” he told the Post by email. “I was never informed of any allegations of misconduct against me by (the woman) or anyone else during my time in the Judiciary Department. I have never been involved in any improper conduct. “
The memo, authored by then Human Resources Director Eric Brown, highlighted a number of situations in the department in which the alleged gender discrimination and sexually explicit crimes by judges and other high-ranking officials dating back almost a decade have been ignored or covered up. until you protect them.
Brown was Masias’s deputy when the clerk’s allegations were investigated.
The decision to negotiate the settlement with the clerk was “according to the president of the court,” said the memo, although it did not indicate the name of the judge. Court President Michael Bender was retiring at the time and Supreme Court President Nancy Rice was to replace him.
“I negotiated a release agreement with a clerk who accused his COA judge of harassment in order to keep him ‘safe’ during the … Supreme Court judge selection process by the court president” says the memo.
At the request of the Supreme Court, a panel of eight people was appointed last week by Governor Jared Polis, Attorney General Phil Weiser and the Legislature to hire and monitor an independent investigator to examine the memo’s allegations. At the same time, the office of Auditor Dianne Ray of Colorado is investigating the claim that the $ 2.5 million contract was given to Masias, the department’s former chief of staff, to avoid the revealing lawsuit.
Responding to an email from The Post requesting comments on the circumstances and details of the deal negotiated with the ex-registrar, Gabriel said: “Your recitation of the facts of this matter is incorrect”, but he declined to go into details.
Gabriel also said that he welcomed the investigation.
“I will fully cooperate with the next independent investigation and I will be fully justified,” he said in the email. “Pending the conclusion of this investigation, I will have no further comment.”
Although Gabriel was not among the three Supreme Court finalists appointed in October 2013 to replace the retiring Bender – Judge William Hood eventually received the nomination – the release agreement ensured Gabriel’s hopes for the state’s highest court would not be harmed.
Bender told The Denver Post that he was not aware of any harassment complaints against any judge of the Court of Appeals who was running for the Supreme Court at the time. As ex-officio chairman of the nominating committee, Bender said he would have a duty to report any incident to them, no matter how light.
The then president of Justice, Rice, told the Post that he was aware of the harassment complaint, as detailed in the memo, but did not say when he heard about it. She said she knew that an investigation by the department had taken place and that there was a solution.
She did not say whether the complaint was founded or not, or what the resolution was.
The Colorado Judicial Discipline Commission said that none of the incidents listed in the memo were sent to them, despite a department directive that requires all harassment complaints to be forwarded. The committee must disclose any substantiated complaint to a judicial nominating committee.
Several members of the 15-person Supreme Court nominating committee at the time told the Post that they remember that Gabriel was a candidate for Bender’s post. They said that they do not remember hearing any negative questions about anyone who applied for the court seat, and that such information would likely have a material impact on whether a candidate would be appointed to the governor.
The committee opens up to conduct extensive interviews with candidates, as well as associates and colleagues, and then conducts several votes before deciding on three names to be referred to the governor.
Governor John Hickenlooper appointed Gabriel to the Supreme Court in June 2015, replacing retired judge Gregory Hobbs Jr. Gabriel had been an appeals judge for eight years.
In a recent public hearing at which the Supreme Court heard comments about increasing transparency in the lawyer’s disciplinary process, Gabriel said there should be some limitation on what the complaints would become public.
“I am concerned about this, unlimited, everything is open to the world (approach) because I fear the damage, of reputation, that this could cause to very good lawyers who have done nothing wrong, and clients who use this as a weapon against a lawyer , ”Gabriel said.
He also e-mailed others to tell the Denver Post’s opening stories that revealed the memo’s existence, the judicial department’s refusal to disclose it, and former State Court administrator Christopher Ryan’s claims of a quid contract. -pro-quo “just weren’t true”
“As in previous (The Post) articles about the agency, which are uniformly negative, in this, (The Post) found an ex-employee unhappy and (The Post) published a unilateral and sensationalist narrative (The Post) was informed”, Gabriel sent an email to his team on February 3, the morning the Post was first published, according to a copy obtained by the newspaper through an open records request.
The court released the memo five days after the judges said they first read it, and court president Brian Boatright called for an independent investigation into its content and the auditor’s inquiry into Ryan’s allegations.