The Colorado Supreme Court this week handed over for investigation to the Colorado State Auditor’s Office a memo detailing nearly two dozen instances of judicial and administrator misconduct at the heart of an alleged $2.72 million hush money contract scandal, but the public may never get a chance to find out what the Auditor’s Office concludes.

Fraud audits conducted by the State Auditor’s Office are confidential under state law. Colorado State Auditor Dianne Ray confirmed that in accordance with the law governing fraud audits, her office will deliver the final findings to the state’s Judicial Department and not to the public.

She said it was up to the Judicial Department whether it would make the findings public.

“Fraud investigation final reports will never be made public by our office,” Ray said. “They are completely confidential and provided to the department that requested our assistance.”

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Even the legislative Audit Committee, which legislators sit on, may not get the results of the investigation, according to state law.

The legislative Audit Committee receives a summary detailing how many fraud hotline tips the state auditor received in the previous fiscal year, and the disposition of those tips. But the auditor only reports to the committee the results of a fraud investigation if the investigation finds alleged fraud exceeding $100,000, according to state law.

Robert McCallum, a spokesman for the Colorado State Court Administrator’s Office, did not respond to requests for comment on whether the Colorado Supreme Court would release to the public the fraud audit’s findings.

“I am very concerned that the critical component of a judiciary in a free society is transparency and accountability,” said State Sen. Pete Lee, a Colorado Springs Democrat who is chairman of the Senate Judiciary Committee. “The integrity of the system is absolutely fundamental to the public confidence in the judiciary.”

State law requires the Auditor’s Office to alert law enforcement, prosecutors or the Colorado Attorney General’s Office if the investigation “finds evidence of apparently illegal transactions or misuse or embezzlement of public funds or property,” but the state auditor does so confidentially.

Ray said she could neither confirm nor deny whether her office has made any such referrals from the fraud investigation conducted into the disputed contract given to the firm of Mindy Masias, the former chief deputy of the Colorado Supreme Court.

Lawrence Pacheco, a spokesman for the Colorado Attorney General’s office, also would neither confirm nor deny whether a referral has been made to that office.

Ray launched the fraud audit after receiving an anonymous tip in the spring of 2019 on her office’s fraud hotline alleging Mindy Masias and Eric Brown, then the Judicial Department’s director of human resources, and Christopher Ryan, then the Colorado state court administrator, of engaging in a coverup of Family Medical Leave Act fraud.

Ryan had placed Masias on leave after Masias’ travel expenditure reimbursements had been flagged for discrepancies. Masias eventually would resign on March 15, 2019, stating in her resignation letter that she was resigning “with some trepidation but also excitement to take the next step in my career.”

Ryan alleged this month to The Denver Post that after Masias was placed on leave and under consideration for firing, Masias threatened to file a tell-all sexual discrimination lawsuit that would divulge about two dozen instances of judicial and administrator misconduct in Colorado’s judicial branch.

Ryan told The Denver Post that Brown, then the Judicial Department’s human resources director, drafted a memo detailing Masias’ allegations, which Ryan said he took to Nathan “Ben” Coats, who at that time was the chief justice of the Colorado Supreme Court.

Among the memo’s accusations: A Court of Appeals judge had secretly negotiated a settlement with a law clerk alleging harassment, allowing the judge to remain viable for selection to the Colorado Supreme Court.

The memo, a copy of which was obtained by The Gazette, also states Masias was told to destroy an anonymous complaint alleging that the chief justice of the Supreme Court had engaged in sexism and harassment. Two lower court judges were promoted to chief justice in their judicial districts despite sending pornographic videos over their judicial emails, and other administrators and chief probation officers in judicial districts also engaged in misconduct without consequence, according to the memo.

Ryan claims that when he held a meeting with Coats to go over the memo, Coats signed off on Ryan’s suggestion that the Judicial Department would allow Masias to resign and would give Masias’ firm, The Leadership Practice, a $2.72 million leadership contract to prevent her from filing the lawsuit. Ryan awarded the contract to Masias’ firm six days after she resigned from her chief of staff position. The Colorado Supreme Court had the contract canceled six weeks later after public criticism mounted due to disclosures.

The State Auditor’s Office referred to the disputed contract in a November performance audit, which found the awarding of the contract to Masias’ firm had “the appearance of impropriety.”

Ray, in an interview, said that the performance audit was completely separate from the fraud investigation her office is conducting. The performance audit, which was released to the public, had separate fraud investigators and auditors, Ray said. The fraud audit remains ongoing, she said.

The performance audit also found issues related to Judicial Department travel expenditures and credit card purchases, noting that in one instance two employees attended three leadership conferences in New York City at a cost of $27,700 with scant documentation of the expenditures.

The Supreme Court announced this week that it had turned the memo detailing Masias’ allegations over to the state auditor for further investigation.

“We steadfastly deny that the decision to enter in a contract with The Leadership Practice was motivated in any way by desire to keep information about the department quiet, and we committed to cooperating with the auditor’s investigation,” the Colorado Supreme Court said in an email sent out on Monday by Chief Justice Brian Boatright.