U.S. attorney nominee denies accessing restricted files

President Barack Obama's nominee to be Colorado's next U.S. attorney has denied any involvement in the access of a restricted federal database to help Bill Ritter's 2006 campaign for governor.

In a letter addressed to U.S. Sen. Mark Udall and forwarded to the Senate Judiciary Committee, Stephanie Villafuerte said the answer to whether she ever used information from the database for campaign purposes "is emphatically no."

Villafuerte has consistently declined to answer questions from The Denver Post about a phone message and a series of calls between her and officials at the Denver district attorney's office. Those calls happened around the time that the DA's office accessed that restricted database for information about a heroin dealer who received a favorable plea deal from Ritter when he was district attorney.

The drug dealer, Walter Ramo, also known as Carlos Estrada Medina, went on to molest a child in California and became the subject of campaign ads from Ritter's 2006 opponent, Bob Beauprez.

Read the full story at denverpost.com