Former Jefferson County Attorney Frank Hutfless "joked" in 2006 about having a county critic who is suing Jeffco killed, according to a Colorado Bureau of Investigation report.
Hutfless made the remarks about longtime county critic Mike Zinna on two separate occasions to County Administrator Jim Moore, according to the report. Moore was interviewed by the CBI on Feb. 21, 2007, as part of the agency's investigation into whether Commissioner Jim Congrove improperly used county funds to hire a private eye to investigate county critics and county employees. The report was part of the investigation turned over to the Adams County District Attorney's Office, which declined to pursue charges in the Congrove case.
The first alleged “joke” occurred Feb. 22, 2006, after a contentious county commissioners' meeting Zinna attended. After the meeting, another meeting was held, attended by the then-commissioners — Kevin McCasky, Jim Congrove and Dave Auburn —and Hutfless and Moore. Hutfless told the group he had spoken to a law firm that could "take care of" Zinna, and that he would get a proposal. Hutfless further said that “ ‘the company can do anything including having a person shot,’ ” the CBI report reads. Moore told the investigators he didn't take the comments seriously and considered them "chest-beating, hot-air kind of stuff."
It's unclear whether that meeting was legal under the Colorado Open Meetings Law. Public meetings — at which at least two public officials converse about public business — require at least a 24-hour public notice, according to state law. "Frank Hutfless interpreted the law, and he believed he could give legal advice to the Board of County Commissioners without the meeting being posted," McCasky said May 14.
The second “joke” came on March 1, 2006, when Hutfless stopped by Moore's office and told him he had spoken to a California law firm about Zinna, and the firm wanted $14,000 to conduct a “threat assessment.”
Hutfless then allegedly told Moore, according to the CBI report, “that he had friends in California that have ‘Mafia ties,' and he could 'make one phone call and have Zinna taken care of.' " The report then outlines how Hutfless told Moore about two people who had been relocated to different countries by Mafia friends. They were "given $10,000 and a plane ticket, and told it was either this way or the other way."
" ‘It happens all the time; no one ever knows what happens,’ " the report said Hutfless told Moore. " ‘People just disappear; how easy it is to fly someone out over the Pacific Ocean dropping them out of an airplane; there is no trace.’ "
A CBI agent called Hutfless and asked him about the comments, and Hutfless said he was frustrated over Zinna at the time and "probably did make those statements out of frustration."
"I don't recall saying anything like that," Hutfless said May 13 in a phone interview with the Courier. "If they were made, it wasn't with any kind of serious intent." He added that if he did make the comments, they were made with "tongue in cheek."
When asked if it was appropriate for a Jefferson County official to even joke about having a critic and litigant killed, Hutfless said, "Probably not. If those kinds of things were said, it probably wouldn't be." He further denied having any friends in the Mafia or knowing how to have someone "relocated."
Huftless says that it was "probably not" appropriate for a Jeffco official to even joke about having someone killed.
Probably not?
Moore added that although he believes the comments were made in jest, they were not appropriate.
McCasky said May 13 that he never heard Hutfless make the comments during the Feb. 22, 2006, meeting, and never heard anything from Moore.
McCasky remembers Hutfless relaying a statement made by the principal of a security firm, and when that person mentioned eliminating the problem altogether, he said, Hutfless immediately ended the conversation.
"Most importantly for me, once the CBI and special prosecutor finished their review and the investigation was over, the case was behind us, and … I'm focusing on the business operation of the county, the financial operations, improving the transportation network and creating economic opportunity in Jefferson County," McCasky said. "It's over and done with."
If McCasky had heard Hutfless joke about killing a litigant, would he have asked him to resign?
"I'm not going to speculate as to what I would have done two years ago on this matter without the facts," McCasky said. "I don't have any facts in front of me."
"In no way, shape or form would the Board of County Commissioners, in any stretch of the imagination, condone or support any kind of talk like having anyone killed or anything like that," McCasky said May 14.
I don't understand why McCasky would dodge this last question. If a county attorney, even one who had donated money to my campaign (as Huftless had to McCasky's campaign), joked about killing someone, I would absolutely, positively take swift and appropriate action. There is a clear line between right in wrong in so many of the cases we've seen in Jefferson County. It's just too bad that our elected officials usually can't find it.
