Hunter Doesn't Believe Keenan about CU...

Link to Rocky Mountain News Story--Hunter

Hunter, Keenan differ on events
July 21, 2004

Addressing one of the key statements in the CU recruiting scandal, former Boulder County District Attorney Alex Hunter says he does not believe one of his deputies put the school "on notice" over its alleged use of sex and alcohol to entice blue chip football players.

He also said Mary Keenan never provided him with evidence of such a practice, and discounted as "an extraordinary exaggeration" an allegation that the football program regularly tried to entice recruits through "sexual contact with intoxicated women."

Hunter made his comments last month during a deposition given as part of federal lawsuits filed against the school by women who say athletes raped them.

Hunter contradicted Keenan's recollection of a meeting with school officials in February 1998, three months after a Niwot high school student said she had been sexually assaulted by two football recruits.

During a deposition last fall, Keenan said the meeting included Hunter, chief trial deputy Peter Hoffstrom, Boulder campus Chancellor Richard Byyny and athletic director Dick Tharp.

Keenan said she believed the football program was routinely using sex and alcohol to entice recruits, and wanted to warn Byyny and Tharp to put a halt to it.

"My statement to him (Tharp) was that you need to take measures to prevent this because if it happens again, we are going to deal with it very seriously. You are on notice," she recalled saying.

~~~~SNIP~~~~

In the deposition released by the university, Hunter said his deputy could not have put school officials on notice to make changes because she did not have the authority.

"This was a big boy meeting, but it was not, you know, the grand jury handing down an indictment, which is about what this language suggests," he said.

In her deposition, Keenan said she was included at the meeting because she had expressed anger about the recruiting program and was supposed to act as the "heavy" to deliver a message to Tharp to end practices she believed led to the alleged rape three months earlier.

"We all knew what my role was," she said. "It was the only reason to have me there." Hunter said if any of his deputies had told him they believed the football program was engaging in criminal activity, he would have approached either Boulder or campus police, or brought the allegation to the county grand jury.

"Prosecutors don't talk that way," he said. "I mean, you don't talk about rumors. I mean, if you hear something, you ask the appropriate agency to look into it. I mean, you don't operate on rumors." The lawsuits also claim that Hunter, Hoffstrom and Keenan warned Colorado officials to reform football recruiting practices to prevent sexual assaults.

"It didn't happen this way," he said. "I can't imagine that those kinds of statements would have been made without it searing into my brain." The result of the meeting, he said, was that some of his deputies would talk with football players about state sex-assault and assault laws.

~~~~SNIP~~~~

In an April meeting with an investigative panel appointed by the Board of Regents, Byyny also said he did not recall Keenan putting the university "on notice." He told the panel he believed the meeting was held so prosecutors could inform school officials they were not going to file sexual assault charges in the 1997 incident at a Boulder hotel.

Keenan later called Byyny's recollection of the meeting "ridiculous." "We don't go up to the university to tell administrators that we're not filing charges against individuals. We inform individuals and we inform the victims," she said. "We did go up there to put them on notice."

~~~~SNIP~~~~

A statewide grand jury has been meeting since May. The school has changed recruiting policies to ensure tighter supervision of recruits and less opportunity for use of alcohol and attendance of off-campus events.


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(Bolding and Italics mine)

I find it interesting that Hunter is contradicting Keenan....Wonder what else went on in that office?

 

Thank you Tez - great find!!

Little

 

Excellent, Little, thank you for posting this! It makes it clear that the backbiting and contention amongst the BDA staff still exists. This, plus the Gigax fiasco created by Lou Smit and "leaked" to Tracey, form yet a more perfect foundation for our petition demand based in the Pease case to remove the Ramsey case from these "big boys," "little lying girls" and backstabbing unethical attorneys! Earth to Governor Owens....... :monkey: :monkey: :monkey:

 

Thanks Tez

ahhh more hinkiness.

 

You are all welcome!

I was actually looking in the RMN to see if anything had come out in the mainstream media about the Tracey crock, and I found this article. I think there will probably be more about this. I haven't look in the Daily Camera yet, I am going there next.

 

From the Daily Camera

Link to Daily Camera--Hunter

Former Boulder County District Attorney Alex Hunter said the University of Colorado was never put "on notice" about its football recruiting practices after a 1997 rape allegation against a visiting recruit.

In sworn testimony taken for a lawsuit against the university, Hunter said a meeting between CU officials and prosecutors, including his successor Mary Keenan, was more a discussion of alcohol issues and collaborating on sexual assault prevention than a warning to CU.

The lawsuit, filed by two women who claim CU fostered an environment that led to their being raped by athletes in December 2001, says CU was warned at that meeting to "reform CU football policies and practices" to prevent sexual assaults.

"I can't imagine that those kinds of statements would have been made without it searing into my brain," Hunter said in the June deposition, which CU released Wednesday.

~~~SNIP~~~

The issue of CU being notified of problems before the alleged 2001 attacks is central to the lawsuit because the plaintiffs must prove that CU knew about and was deliberately indifferent to issues of sexual harassment that denied them equal access to an education.

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Bolding, italics, and coloring mine for emphasis.

 

"Extraordinary exaggeration" - exactly. That's exactly what Keenan is all about. It seems to be something that's prevalent among some people in Boulder. We've all been witnesses to the histrionics of a certain self-proclaimed, self-serving grass roots reporter from there. Extraordinary exaggeration has no place in the DA's office. It's unprofessional and it's a danagerous practice.

Again, I agree. Could it be that Hunter is a little disenchanted with his successor in the DA's office? Not that he was much better when he was DA, but it's probably fun for him to be holier than though now that he's retired. He not only talked about rumors when he was DA; he had been known to start a few rumors, himself, so I guess I have to take this with a grain of salt. It does fortify my beliefs that the whole damn bunch of them are morons.

 

Yes, the whole bunch of them are morons!

 

Another article...

Link to Times Call Article--Hunter

 

What else is she capable of Frigging up?????

 

Great find, Tez!

It seems that Keenan-Lacy has always been somewhat of a loose cannon.

How do people like this stay in office?

 

Great find, TEZ!!!

The more absurd things get in Boulder, the more normal it seems.

What are BoulderCounty voters thinking? Are they phukking BRAINDEAD?


...YumYum

 

This was two years ago and poor Tezzie is missing out now!