Victor Mitchell, a Republican candidate for governor, believes a so-called “deep state” of influential forces guides Colorado’s government, in part based on his own experiences.
“I worry about the deep state – the deep state is real,” Mitchell said in a recent gubernatorial debate, veering into a domain once reserved for conspiracy theorists but now promoted by President Donald Trump’s allies. “I think we, frankly, have an overreaching government that has gotten too powerful.”
The former state lawmaker said the evidence to support his assertion is apparent in the criminal justice system, where investigative records are retained even when allegations are proven false.
“Why would the deep state be allowed to keep a file on somebody that never broke the law, was never charged with anything or did anything wrong just because somebody came up with a phony allegation,” he said in an interview Thursday, echoing his comments in two recent televised debates. “What kind of system is that? That is why we don’t trust our government, why so many people don’t trust our institutions anymore.”
What appears to be a random digression is a deeply personal issue for Mitchell, and it affects how he, if elected, would approach criminal justice reforms.
The situation he described in the Republican primary debates is analogous to what he experienced 12 years ago, when authorities investigated Mitchell for an offense they ultimately concluded was unfounded: sexual assault on a child. The investigation began after a woman he knew went to authorities to describe her suspicions of inappropriate behavior.
The Douglas County Sheriff’s Office and Human Services Department investigated the woman’s suspicions and determined within days that “no elements of the crime could be established,” according to an official sheriff’s report obtained in April by The Denver Post through a public records request.
The partially redacted 34-page file does not contain any indication that the woman claimed to have actually seen unlawful behavior. Investigators interviewed numerous people close to the situation before reaching their conclusion.
In April, Mitchell told The Post he didn’t even know the investigative report still existed. “You’re looking at a report that I’ve never seen,” he said.
Mitchell’s experience influences his look at criminal justice issues
The report’s existence — and its public disclosure — startled Mitchell, and his campaign took quick action to keep others from viewing the file.
Days after The Post first approached Mitchell about the report, an attorney working on his behalf went to court and had the record sealed, a move that allows the candidate and the sheriff’s office to deny its existence. The sheriff’s office confirmed it was sealed in an April 27 letter to Mitchell, and his campaign attorney sent a letter to The Post asking for its voluntary destruction.
Mitchell also asked current Douglas County Sheriff Tony Spurlock to review the 2006 case file.
In a letter dated May 4, Spurlock reaffirmed that the woman’s claims were “unfounded” and the case was closed. He wrote that the evidence suggested “that the reporting party may not have been truthful” but was protected from prosecution under the law.
The letter, Spurlock acknowledged, is unusual. “I’ve really only done that a couple times in my career when people are falsely accused,” he said in an interview.
The sheriff said he believed the woman’s claims were designed “to punish” Mitchell. “We determined that it didn’t occur,” he said. “There was no evidence whatsoever that led us to believe there was a crime.”
Even before the accusation against the wealthy entrepreneur, Mitchell said he donated “generously” to the Innocence Project, an organization that works to free wrongly convicted people from prison. And he acknowledged his situation partly contributes to his interest in the issue.
“It was a terrible incident, and it made me, hopefully, a better man, because I have a tremendous amount of empathy now for people who are falsely accused,” he said.
On the campaign trail, Mitchell makes a point to express concern for those who are wrongly accused by highlighting the issue when talking about his views of the criminal justice system.
“We’ve come to an age that a great deal of false allegations are put forward,” Mitchell said in a Colorado Public Television and CBS4 debate. “When I grew up, it was unheard of to hear of a false allegation. This particular generation, there seems to be a good deal of false allegations — people’s reputations could be slandered.”
During a 9News debate, days later, Mitchell said, “Do you know that every sheriff’s office in our state keeps investigative files on people that were simply accused of something, never charged or anything? So that … is a deep state.”
David Hill, who is Mitchell’s campaign consultant, said the candidate feels compelled to talk about the issue of the wrongly accused on the campaign trail because of his personal experience. “It’s just so much of who he is,” Hill said, adding, “He just has this strong identification with it.”
Mitchell’s numerous campaign statements highlighting the issue prompted The Post to cite the years-old claim against him. This story omits most of the details of the 2006 investigation to protect others’ privacy and to recognize law enforcement’s conclusion that the woman’s statement to police was not supported by the evidence.
The latest polls show Mitchell in second place in the June 26 Republican primary for governor, well behind state Treasurer Walker Stapleton.
Mitchell says claim was designed to “extort” money
In Thursday’s interview, Mitchell said money motivated the claim, but those details are not listed in the investigative report. Just weeks before the complaint was filed, Mitchell said the complainant’s grandson asked his wife for a $10,000 loan. His wife said no.
“I think they were trying to extort money from our family,” Mitchell said in the interview. “But we’ll never really know what the motive is.”
The family hired a lawyer and private investigator, who determined the woman who filed the complaint had a record that suggested she wasn’t truthful and needed money. The Post repeatedly attempted to contact the woman, who no longer lives in Colorado, but she did not respond.
Mitchell said the system worked for him because he had the money to hire people who understand the system, but he worries about those who don’t have the same resources.
“The system worked. It was a fair system at the end of the day,” he said. “I was just lucky. What happens if there was somebody else who was not as fortunate as me?”
Mitchell said Colorado “absolutely” needs new criminal justice laws to address such situations. He wants to make it easier to destroy or seal records of investigations determined to be unfounded, and he supports repealing immunity protections for those who intentionally make false criminal accusations.
“There should be real consequences,” he said. “With the way our system works right now, if you put forward a false allegation in certain categories, you basically have immunity and the (accused) doesn’t have any – virtually any — rights.
“And then a record is formed. It doesn’t mean that the person gets charged. So you have to be careful about these type of things.”
The Douglas County sheriff said the law allows the destruction of records for cases where a criminal charge is made, but not where a criminal charge isn’t made. “Because it wasn’t a crime there, it is kind of stuck in this limbo state,” Spurlock said.
In response to Mitchell’s concerns about the “deep state,” Spurlock added: “We follow the law, whatever the law says, that’s what we do.”
