A former district court judge in Weld County pleaded guilty to obstructing a federal cocaine trafficking investigation, U.S. Attorney Jason R. Dunn announced on Wednesday.

Ryan Kamada had been friends since high school with a Greeley man involved in a cocaine distribution organization in northern Colorado. In April 2019, Kamada received a phone call from a federal task force officer, who informed the judge that he was connected on social media with the trafficker. Kamada recused himself from the case, but the following morning called Geoffrey Chacon, a mutual friend of the judge and trafficker and at the time an assistant middle school principal.

“Stay away” from the trafficker, Kamada told Chacon, adding that agents were surveilling the man. Chacon subsequently alerted the trafficker to the federal presence.

“After Chacon relayed the information that he received from the judge to the drug trafficker, Chacon destroyed records of his communications with the drug trafficker in order to impair efforts by law enforcement to tie Chacon to the drug trafficker,” the announcement from Dunn’s office explained.

Chacon pleaded guilty to destruction of records with the intent to obstruct a federal investigation. Kamada, appointed as a judge in 2018, pleaded guilty to obstruction of proceedings before a department or agency of the United States. His sentencing hearing will be on Dec. 4.

Kamada resigned in 2019, and Gov. Jared Polis appointed Meghan Patrice Saleebey to replace him.