A journalist divorcing her husband – a Colorado deputy attorney general – said in court filings that she never asked that the private judge hired to handle their case seal it from public view and supports efforts to open it.

Former Denver District Court Judge William Meyer, who now works as the top private judge at Judicial Arbiter Group, agreed to hear arguments from the Colorado Freedom of Information Coalition on Oct. 27 about why the divorce case should be unsealed and limit only “truly sensitive” information from the public.

Meyer suppressed the 2021 case between Alexis Denny Kaufmann and Steven Kaufman in February 2022, records show, but the public can’t even see his order, his reasons for it or the attorneys’ basis for the request.

The only time a domestic relations case, such as a divorce, can be sealed is after a judge has specifically determined that the harm to a person’s privacy far outweighs the public’s interest in a transparent and open proceeding.

That apparently didn’t happen in the Kaufmann divorce.

“I cannot seek to hide from public view my own file in a manner different from the transparency for which I have advocated in my professional life and in public service,” Kaufmann wrote in a court filing provided by the CFOIC. “I am not aware of any time that I or my counsel asked for the file to be suppressed, or presented any reasons for doing so separate from the protection of my private medical records.”

The Colorado Judicial Department has rules that specifically require suppression orders in criminal matters be open for public inspection, but not in civil matters.

The state’s official court filing system – known as the Integrated Colorado Courts E-Filing System – doesn’t allow the public to see even the registry of actions in the Kaufmann divorce, which include when court orders are issued or hearings are scheduled. Services, such as Co-Courts or Background Information Services, provide the registry but at a price. They offer no access to any of the documents.

Steven Kaufmann objected to CFOIC’s efforts, saying in a court filing through his attorney that there was “no compelling public interest” in unsealing it and a greater “potential harm” should personal information be released.

In its motion, CFOIC president and attorney Steven Zansberg noted that “all proceedings before judicial officers in this country are presumptively open to the public” and that “Colorado’s law recognizes this strong presumption of public access.”

CFOIC’s efforts came on the tail of a Denver Gazette investigation in March 2025 that found the state’s private judge system was largely used by the wealthy to divorce and keep their affairs away from the public eye.

The Denver Gazette found that private judges hired to handle divorce cases in Colorado suppress them from public view at far greater rates than in cases that rely on district court judges, leaving some legal experts wondering whether affluent clients are simply buying their way into secrecy.

A private judge is one that had previously served as a full-time jurist and is appointed to the position by the state’s Supreme Court chief justice after they retire. The newspaper found that some private judges suppressed cases nearly routinely, while having barely utilized that tool when they served as a regular judge on the district court bench.

The Denver Gazette found that nearly half of all the suppressions were made by the same appointed judge — Angela Arkin — a former Arapahoe County district judge who hardly suppressed any cases in a 14-year career on the bench through her retirement in 2016, records show.

Arkin works for the same private judge group as Meyer.