The Denver Gazette: Four former Colorado Judicial Department employees will not face criminal charges tied to a state fraud audit into alleged misconduct because prosecutors say they didn’t have enough time to investigate the matter before the statute of limitations to file a case would have expired, The Denver Gazette has learned.

That the Denver district attorney’s office received only a “heavily redacted” copy of the audit findings in February 2022 when the Judicial Department released it — nine months after fraud auditors had largely completed their investigation into alleged misconduct in the department — merely added to the problem, several sources familiar with the inquiry told The Gazette.

And although state law requires auditors to “immediately” alert law enforcement when any evidence of fraud is found, much of the delay was from lawyers within the Attorney General’s office and the Judicial Department and auditors disagreeing over what “immediately” actually meant: At the time auditors uncovered the alleged fraud or after their final report was finished, according to people familiar with those discussions.

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