Author: Christopher Osher, The Gazette

State and El Paso County law enforcement authorities failed to review crucial evidence during the investigation into the murder of Colorado corrections chief Tom Clements, including a confidential informant’s recordings that revealed two members of a white supremacist gang feared they faced criminal culpability for helping the triggerman flee Colorado, a scathing secret report revealed…

Worries that potential co-conspirators in the murder of Colorado Corrections chief Tom Clements escaped criminal charges prompted the office of former Gov. John Hickenlooper to push corrections officials to hire a retired FBI agent to review the case and state policies, records and interviews show. The retired agent submitted his findings to the state in…

Two former corrections officers at a Colorado women’s prison in Denver, now facing criminal charges, remained employed despite past personnel transgressions, prompting civil rights attorneys to blast the state’s management of the facility. The lawyers say the state’s past lenient disciplines for the two officers, Joshua Hensley and Scott Mathews Jr., reveal ongoing lax standards…

Denver District Attorney Beth McCann paid $237,000 in settlement and severance payments over the past 1 ½ years to three employees who either resigned amid controversy or were fired by her. Second-in-command Ryan Brackley resigned as assistant deputy district attorney in July after The Gazette and Colorado Politics disclosed that Brackley had bullied subordinates –…

In the weeks before he assassinated Colorado prison chief Tom Clements, Evan Ebel repeatedly told another 211 Crew member that he “was taking care of things on the street for other inmates” and would “likely die soon,” an investigative document reveals. The new discovery by The Gazette of the recorded conversations between Ebel and a…

Benjamin Davis, the founder of a white supremacist gang, was so sure other gang members conspired to assassinate Colorado prison chief Tom Clements that he agreed to wear a law enforcement wire to record and collect evidence against inmates he identified as likely involved, say three people with ties to the investigation. El Paso County…

A second high-ranking prosecutor will leave Denver District Attorney Beth McCann’s office in the wake of a workplace investigation that questioned whether McCann was letting bullying, sexist and racial remarks go unpunished. McCann, in an email to her top deputies Tuesday night, announced the impending departure of Chief Deputy District Attorney Michael Song. The announcement…

Denver District Attorney Beth McCann “created an atmosphere of fear” when she let another prosecutor get away with misconduct long before her second-in-command bullied staffers, according to investigative documents and interviews. A whistleblower, in a statement to an external investigator, portrayed McCann as a lax chief executive who let problems in the office fester without…