State Supreme Court tells El Paso County sheriff to release details of ex-deputy's firing

El Paso County Sheriff Terry Maketa will be given a third chance to release information about the department's investigation into a deputy's "malfeasance," according to a ruling Monday by the Colorado Supreme Court.

The justices overturned 4th Judicial District Judge David Miller's ruling earlier this year that the entire internal affairs investigation into the actions of former deputy Shawn Moncalieri must be released to the public.

Instead, according to the ruling, Maketa must go through the voluminous file and "balance the public and private interests involved" and resubmit the file to Miller within 30 days.

"We will go through the process again, although we believe we did the proper procedure last time," said Charles Greenlee, Maketa's legal advisor.

Moncalieri was fired March 6, 2007, after at least two internal affairs investigations in the previous year. One involved Moncalieri shooting a burglary suspect fleeing in a vehicle who allegedly tried to run him over. The second involved the wrongful arrest of two Fountain men that later resulted in the county secretly paying each man $20,000 to avoid a lawsuit.

A Gazette reporter asked for Moncalieri's internal affairs files in February 2007, and again in March of that year. Both times Maketa refused, citing Moncalieri's privacy.

"These documents reveal Moncalieri's malfeasance that led to the wrongful arrest of the John Does on two separate occasions," according to Monday's ruling. "Over five-hundred pages of the nearly one-thousand page internal affairs file in this case concern Moncalieri's role in the arrests of the John Does."

The Fountain men successfully petitioned a judge to seal all the court records involving the wrongful arrest cases. After that ruling, Maketa said he couldn't release the files because of that judge's ruling.

The Gazette filed a lawsuit in April to obtain the records.

"Sheriff Maketa was found to have not exercised proper discretion on two occasions and the Court has commanded him to do so now, the third time" said Steven Zansberg, The Gazette's attorney. "We are confident that the Sheriff will determine, in exercising that discretion, that the public should see the vast bulk of this internal investigation file."

When Miller ordered the files released in April, he wrote: "The public has a legitimate interest in knowing how law enforcement officers behave while doing their jobs, and how their superiors respond when claims of misconduct are raised and later validated by investigation. That interest becomes absolutely compelling when taxpayer dollars are spent to pay for the misdeeds of public servants."

The ruling also "appears to afford absolute anonymity" to the two John Does, Zansberg said.

"A government that is not transparent is not legitimate," Gazette Editor Jeff Thomas said Monday. "If the sheriff is sincere about upholding the integrity of his office, he will permit the public to see what costly actions were carried out in their name by former deputy Moncalieri and how his department held the deputy to account."

Moncalieri, 33, currently works as a private investigator in Colorado Springs. He was charged with felony menacing in April after allegedly threatening a business owner with a pistol. His trial in that case is scheduled for Jan. 12. He remains free on bail.