Case History Section 5

1991 - 1995	Political Retribution in Family Court for Blowing the Whistle?
	Letter to Attorney, Parrish Debating the Disclosure of the Connection Between the Pension Fund Embezzlement and the Charges Filed in the Family Court Report of Embezzlement, DA Interview, Transcript

During the period of 1991 through 1995 Harmon was married to Dearna Garcia, had two children, Danielle and Isaac Wilfred and relocated to Colorado Springs, Colorado to start life anew.  He then took a position with the El Paso County Pension Fund through their hired contractors, Re-Max Real Estate and Paragon Properties to renovate, lease and sell the Funds recently purchased properties.  In the process he discovered in 1994-95 that the Fund properties were obtained from the same shell company, 3M Greco, involved in his class action suit  that purchased Harmon's property from the RTC, and that the Fund Administrator Michael Witty, and the contractors Harmon was working for were skimming money from the Fund on these deals to their personal benefit. No surprise considering the underhanded character of the original RTC / 3M Greco deal.  When Harmon challenged the contractors and the Fund by reporting the embezzlement to the local District Attorney, he discovered that DA's Jeanne Smith and John Suthers, the contractors and Witty were all a part of the same club, and they would cover each others indiscretions no matter what.  In a strange turn of events that involved Harmon's reporting the DA to the FBI for covering up the embezzlement, his current marriage falling apart due to his new wife Dearna's abuse of his children, and the DA connecting the two events in family court to obtain custody related criminal charges against him in retribution for having blown the whistle to the FBI, Harmon finally woke up to the harsh reality of the Colorado "Good Old Boy" Network.

Section 5 provides two letters of debate with Harmon's newly retained attorney Dale Parrish in March of 1999. The debate involved the revealing of the 1994-95 connection between the El Paso County Pension Fund embezzlement scheme and the charges to be confronted in the Family Court, thereby utilizing this connection as an affirmative defense.  Upon taking this information to the El Paso County DA's office initially in 1999 with the threat to relate these family court charges directly to the Pension Fund embezzlement case, Parish discovered Jeanne Smith's and John Suthers' immediate resolve to cover their own butts and protect their friends when the next day the investigative evidence involving Suthers and Smith's two year cover-up of the Pension Fund scam was confiscated from Harmon's friends apartment by a bogus search warrant.  The warrant was in regard to an unrelated investigation as a diversion to obtain the original investigative evidence involving Suthers and Smith.  After this incident, Parish was very nervous about any further challenges toward DA Suthers, especially the reporting of his activity to the US Justice Department. 

 

 

From the moment the charges were issued in the Family Court in 1997, Harmon knew that DA's Suthers and Smith were behind this action as retribution for forcing their hand against their "good old boy" contractor friends, Michael Witty, Russell Roehrkasse, Douglas Dragoo and Ed Hume reportedly involved in the Pension Fund embezzlement scheme through various entities including Paragon Properties and Pinnacle Investments.  See Section 6, Gregory Craig summary, first PDF, pgs 10-33 and second PDF, Denver Post article for a detailed description and outline of Harmon's investigation and outlined evidence of the pension fund embezzlement scheme originally provided to the DA in September, 1994.  When Suthers and Smith were forced by Harmon's report to the newspapers and the FBI to investigate and prosecute Pension Fund administrator, Michael Witty nearly two years after the scam was originally exposed by Harmon, they deliberately avoided the potential embarrassment of the public disclosure of Harmon's original investigation and report to the DA. The transcript of the minutes of the meeting regarding the report of embezzlement of monies from the El Paso County Pension Fund with John Kramer, the DA's investigator is proof of Harmon's original involvement in exposing the crime. In the end, not only did the wealthy contractors involved get off "Scot" free, but Witty's conviction and 18 year sentence was dismissed because of errors made by DA Jeanne Smith in prosecuting the case... Surprise, Surprise!

 

 

Index of PDF Documents in Case History Section 5

 

 

Pg    2          Letter to Dale Parrish PC, regarding Pension Fund Embezzlement.

Pg    4          Transcripts of the Minutes of the meeting with the DA’s Office regarding the

                      embezzlement of Pension Funds. 

 

Questions:

1. With such damning and unequivocal evidence to more than justify a full investigation of embezzlement, what happened in the DA’s office to halt the investigation of the Pension Fund Embezzlement scam for 2 years?  Why did Assistant DA Jeanne Smith assign Deputy DA Dan May to the investigation knowing that he was a Pension Fund board member?
2. Who was/is DA/US Attorney John Suthers and DA Jeanne Smith protecting in continuing to cover-up the full extent of the embezzlement.  Were the powerful real estate companies operated by Witty's accomplices Doug Dragoo, Russell Roehrkasse and Ed Hume, political constituents of Suthers and Smith?
3. Why was it necessary for Harmon to go to the media to get this information out into the public domain and ultimately to the FBI to get DA's Suthers and Smith to act?
4. Why was Witty the only person charged when his accomplice contractors, Dragoo, Roehrkasse and Hume were reported with clear documented evidence as the ones embezzling the lion’s share of the money? Was this a John Suthers / Smith "Good old Boy" cover-up?
5. How is it that Witty's embezzlement charges were ultimately dismissed as a direct result of DA Smith's technical errors?  See Witty's dismissal PDF.