A former top Colorado Judicial Department official who last year blew the whistle on what he said was corruption at the highest levels of the court system testified before lawmakers Wednesday, speaking just weeks after an investigation concluded his core allegation of a cover-up to be false.
Former State Court Administrator Christopher Ryan said the investigation into his claims was flawed because it was not independent from the Colorado Judicial Department, and called for widespread reform to the judicial discipline process during brief comments before the Interim Committee on Judicial Discipline.
“Judicial was in full control of the investigations,” he said.
Ryan last year claimed that top judicial officials agreed to give a $2.75 million contract to the state court administrator’s then-Chief-of-Staff Mindy Masias as she left her job to ensure she did not speak publicly about judges’ unaddressed misconduct.
An independent investigation into the contract that finished in June found that while the contract was steeped in unethical behavior, enabled by a toxic work environment and was an abuse of taxpayer resources, it was not specifically designed to stop Masias from speaking out about misconduct or filing a tell-all sex discrimination lawsuit.
The investigators concluded the contract was not a quid-pro-quo deal for silence, in large part because then-Colorado Supreme Court Justice Nathan “Ben” Coats had agreed to give the contract to Masias weeks before the threat of a...
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