Gov. Jared Polis has requested Attorney General Phil Weiser to release an investigation into an Eastern Plains district attorney after complaints to the sheriff’s office that she improperly received opioids.
Polis issued an executive order Aug. 15 appointing Weiser as a unique prosecutor to probe “ability criminal activity concerning” 13th Judicial District DA Brittny Lewton.
CPR News has found out from a supply with the know-how of the investigation that the allegations are connected to Lewton the use of her role as a prosecutor to improperly attain prescription opioids.
“The governor is privy to allegations of misconduct and capability criminal hobby regarding the elected district attorney for the thirteenth Judicial District,” the executive order stated. “The behavior of elected officials is an issue of statewide significance, as is the integrity of the workplaces of the twenty-two elected district legal professionals liable for prosecuting crimes in our kingdom. The governor consequently unearths that it’s far necessary for the legal professional fashionable to behave because the kingdom’s prosecutor and investigate and, in which the proof allows, prosecute capability crook interest.”
Polis’ office stated they’d no further comment. Weiser confirmed his office was looking into the problem, but a spokesman stated the workplace could not speak lively research.
Lewton’s attorney, Stan Garnett, a former Boulder County district legal professional now running as a defense lawyer, stated he became doing what he ought to to make sure Lewton may want to continue doing her activity as lead prosecutor within the judicial district serving six northeast Colorado counties, which includes Morgan, Logan and Yuma, and the cities Sterling and Fort Morgan.
“She has to preserve her constitutional duty to run the DA’s office,” Garnett stated, speakme on Lewton’s behalf. “Brittny is happy with what she’s achieved in her almost seven years as district attorney, she’s been elected two times by means of overwhelming margins and she’s harmless of any idea of wrongdoing.”
The investigation started out in July with employees inside Lewton’s office who raised concerns to local law enforcement approximately Lewton’s conduct. Sheriff’s deputies, together with the Colorado Bureau of Investigation, carried out a research, said Tom Raynes, govt director of the Colorado District Attorneys’ Council.
Once proof materialized, country officers consulted with Raynes approximately how to continue seeing that Lewton is in the price of the judicial district where the mentioned incidents passed off. Raynes asked the district lawyer in Routt County, who works on the opposite facet of the country, in all fairness new on the process and didn’t know Lewton, for that workplace to play an advisory function through reviewing the regulation enforcement investigation.