Shannon McShane, a former Colorado parental evaluator, repeatedly lied in court documents that she had a doctorate in psychology when judges appointed her to make custody recommendations and then targeted for retaliation a father who reported her lies to regulators, a 15-count felony grand jury indictment unsealed on Tuesday alleged.

The indictment said McShane put the job of the father, Chad Kullhem, in jeopardy after Kullhem filed an anonymous complaint in February 2023 against McShane with the Colorado Department of Regulatory Agencies.

Eight days after that complaint was filed, McShane contacted Kullhem’s employer and falsely claimed he was “cyber-stalking” her because she was not 100% for him in her custody evaluation, the grand jury further found. She also told Kullhem’s employer that she was going to report Kullhem to the Arapahoe County judge overseeing his custody dispute with his ex-wife and wanted to talk to the employer “to determine if his actions on company time constitute a violation,” according to the indictment.

After her termination from the statewide rosters for evaluators who make custody recommendations, McShane further falsely claimed in March of 2023 on an attorney listserv that Kullhem showed up at her house and created a “cache of false documents” he sent to state regulators, the indictment further alleged. Prosecutors could find no evidence that she ever reported Kullhem to law enforcement authorities.

Prosecutors now contend McShane was the one who was concocting false tales to evade detection that she had falsified her credentials to become eligible for court appointments by judges assessing custody disputes. Despite her claims that she had a doctorate from the University of Hertfordshire in England, officials with the university say she never even attended the university. In fact, records show she never even was in England during the years she claimed to be attending the university, according to the indictment.

Records showed that McShane claimed in emails and statements to lawyers on Kullhem’s custody dispute that Kullhem, a father in Aurora to children then aged 4 and 7, was an unfit father who was worse than a murderer she claimed she had counseled who put his victims through a woodchipper. Kullhem only succeeded in getting McShane removed from his case after the lawyers in his custody fight jointly filed a motion to do so because of alleged fraud by McShane.

McShane on Wednesday made her initial court appearance before Denver District Court Judge Karen Brody, who declined a request from McShane’s lawyer that the judge reduce the $50,000 cash or surety bond and allow McShane to leave Colorado to return to her home in Texas.

Her lawyer, Matt Spivey, a deputy state public defender, told the judge that his client had told him that a SWAT team had arrested her at her work with a financial firm, where she had a job as a fraud investigator, but the prosecution said McShane actually surrendered to authorities in Texas county different from where she lived or worked.

The prosecutor on the case, Senior Assistant Attorney General Gwenn Sandrock, opposed allowing McShane to leave Colorado, saying McShane had a history of evading when state regulators were investigating her.

“She has traveled extensively,” Sandrock argued. “She has the means to flee.”

Brody said she would require McShane for now to remain in Colorado but would allow her at a later hearing on Oct. 14 to argue she should be allowed to return to her new home in Texas, if pre-trial officials deem it safe for her to do so.

Sandrock said McShane left Texas for Colorado in 2016 after her real estate license was in jeopardy there after she was accused of pocketing money she had collected for owners of a rental complex. Records showed authorities in Texas revoked her real estate license in 2018.

McShane also fled Colorado last year when regulators began investigating the allegations that she had lied about her credentials to obtain a license to practice psychology in Colorado, Sandrock stressed during Wednesday’s court hearing.

The indictment stated that McShane submitted false statements in 2017 about receiving a Ph.D. to obtain her license to practice psychology in Colorado and also falsified the number of required hours of supervision she was required to undergo to obtain licenses to work in Colorado as a psychologist and a certified addiction counselor.

In addition to using her state psychology license to qualify for court appointments on child custody cases, McShane also gained employment as a psychologist candidate at the Colorado Department of Corrections from January 2018 to February 2021, with a final annual salary there of $84,468. She also worked as a psychologist from January 2018 to June 2023 at the state hospital in Pueblo for the criminally insane, with a final salary there of $97,224.

McShane, 57, in the past has proclaimed her innocence and claimed that she was targeted for retaliation by parents unhappy with her custody recommendations.

A grand jury in August issued the 15-count felony indictment that alleged eight counts of attempting to influence a public servant, one count of witness retaliation, one count of perjury and five counts of forgery. The indictments stemmed from a nearly year-long investigation by the Colorado attorney general’s office, launched in the wake of an investigative report on McShane by The Denver Gazette.

The Colorado attorney general’s investigation followed a series of investigative reports into Colorado’s parenting evaluation industry by The Denver Gazette, which found instances of extreme bias and shoddy custody recommendations that at times put children in potentially fatal peril.

Dozens of parents have claimed that McShane, who relinquished her license to practice psychology last year, sent their custody cases into chaos through her unqualified reports.

Court records showed that Magistrate Matthew Bradley, who presided over court cases in six counties in northeast Colorado, asked for a criminal investigation into McShane, which was referred to the Colorado attorney general’s Office, the same day that The Denver Gazette published an investigative report about McShane.

Bradley in November 2022 barred McShane from conducting custody evaluations in the 13th judicial district because he had found her custody evaluations in one case so biased and deficient that he deemed McShane unfit to do such work.

Bradley in November 2022 also warned state administrators that he had barred McShane from working in his judicial district, but McShane still continued to do court-appointed custody evaluations in other judicial districts throughout Colorado.

The state court administrator’s office did not bar McShane from accepting court appointments for more than four months after the magistrate flagged his concerns. McShane surrendered her state licenses required to work as a psychologist and an addiction counselor on July 20, 2023, after licensing boards for those professions suspended her licenses on June 9, 2023.

At least 10 magistrates or judges in Colorado are listed as prosecution witnesses in court documents, along with parents and their lawyers involved in custody disputes in which McShane was a court-appointed evaluator.

District Court Judge Stephanie Gagliano of the 13th Judicial District told the grand jury that McShane testified in one emergency hearing she was overseeing involving custody matters. Gagliano said she relied on McShane’s reasoning at the hearing, according to court documents.

“Gagliano further stated that she was in a difficult position because she feared what would happen if she let the children go with one of the parties in the case,” the indictment stated. “After the hearing concluded Gagliano heard that McShane’s certificates, trainings and degrees were fake.”