A former state senator who allegedly faked at least two letters of support to defend herself in an ethics probe has been charged in a criminal case with attempting to influence a public servant.
Sonya Jaquez Lewis was charged with the felony by the Denver District Attorney’s Office on July 2, according to Denver District Court records. The filing came nearly four months after prosecutors in Boulder and Denver said they were investigating the Longmont Democrat.
Jaquez Lewis turned herself in to Denver police on July 6, spent a night in jail and was released the next morning, said her attorney, Craig Truman, on Tuesday morning. She will be arraigned in early August.
Truman declined to comment on the charges, other than to say that he was “sure when all the facts are known in this difficult and complicated case, justice will be done for both sides.”
Matt Jablow, a spokesman for Denver District Attorney John Walsh, confirmed the charges Monday night. Jaquez Lewis’ case, which wasn’t publicized at the time it was filed, was first reported by Colorado Politics.
Jaquez Lewis resigned from the legislature in February amid an ethics probe into her treatment of her legislative aides. Her resignation came just before the ethics committee learned that Jaquez Lewis had faked a letter of support from a former legislative staffer.
The then-state senator had sent the committee, made up of her colleagues, five letters as part of her defense against allegations that she required aides to do work around her house and had resisted signing off on a staffer’s timecard.
Of five people who submitted letters purportedly on Jaquez Lewis’ behalf, two told investigators they did not author them, according to court records. Another person said she thought a letter submitted under her name wasn’t the letter she’d written, and a fourth alleged author laughed as a Denver investigator read her letter aloud, according to charging documents. The fifth letter was submitted to the legislative committee anonymously.
The Boulder and Denver district attorneys’ offices began investigating Jaquez Lewis in March. Sen. Julie Gonzales, a Democrat who chaired the ethics committee, told The Post then that she contacted prosecutors “about the materials we received from (Jaquez Lewis) as part of the Senate Ethics Committee process.”
At the time, Jaquez Lewis said the letter had been “accidentally submitted.” The alleged author of that letter told investigators that Jaquez Lewis had contacted her repeatedly in January, including by mentioning a potential job lead, according to court records. The woman then learned of the ethics investigation and ignored the then-senator’s calls and texts because “she did not have great things to say about Ms. Jaquez Lewis.”
The Denver Post later confirmed that a second letter of support given to the committee had also apparently been faked. In March, Jaquez Lewis declined to comment about the second letter. Investigators spoke with that purported author, too, and she confirmed she did not write it.
An investigator with the DA’s office also spoke with someone — the name is redacted — who said Jaquez Lewis had asked her to “copy and paste language from an attorney” into a letter that the senator wanted the person to submit to the Secretary of State’s Office on behalf of Jaquez Lewis.
According to court records, the alleged author of another letter said she had written a letter to the ethics committee on the senator’s behalf. But “she believed the letter submitted by Ms. Jaquez Lewis was not the letter she wrote.”
When an investigator called a fourth purported author, the person laughed as the investigator read the letter aloud. The person declined to speak further, according to court records.
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