Now disbarred, former Weld District Court judge’s misconduct described in new court documents

Ryan Kamada disbarred this week by the Office of Attorney Regulation Counsel for the Colorado Supreme Court

 

GREELEY, CO – JULY 21:The Weld County Courthouse stands near downtown at the Weld County Centennial Center in Greeley July 21, 2020. (Alex McIntyre/Staff Photographer)

By Trevor Reid

Ryan Kamada, the former Weld District Court judge who pleaded guilty earlier this year to a federal felony charge for obstructing an investigation into a local drug trafficking ring, was disbarred this week by the Office of Attorney Regulation Counsel for the Colorado Supreme Court.

Documents from the office’s proceedings show Kamada’s misconduct was not limited to his leaking details about the 2019 investigation to a friend who was involved. Kamada was appointed as a Weld County magistrate in May 2015. During that time, he maintained long-running text message chains with his friends, according to court documents.

Ryan Kamada, after taking the bench
in 2015 as a Weld County magistrate.
(Greeley Tribune file photo)

Kamada in late 2016 and early 2017 bought marijuana from a longtime friend, the documents state. The friend referenced in the documents appears to be Geoffrey Chacon, to whom Kamada leaked information about the 2019 investigation. Chacon shared information with others involved in the trafficking, helping investigators trace the source of the leak back to Kamada.

In September 2016, Chacon asked Kamada to look up information about someone. Kamada responded to the man in question “wasn’t convicted of the sex assault but he was on other charges and ended up in (expletive) prison man.” The text went on to say the man in question was having sexual relations with a minor and giving her cocaine. 

“Don’t say anything man,” Kamada wrote.

In December 2016, Kamada referred to a former client by name in a group chat with his friends, saying he did her custody proceedings.

“If that kid lives I’ll be shocked,” he wrote.

In March 2018, Kamada discussed a pending dependency and neglect case in the group chat. A friend asked whether the parent involved had a warrant, and Kamada said he didn’t find one but he hadn’t checked hard, according to court documents.

The next day, that same friend sent a group chat a photo of two children who were reported missing. Kamada went on to talk about details of the family, including that the mother was found overdosed.

 

“When we get those kids back I’m gonna let that (expletive) have it,” he wrote. “That (expletive) is gonna get forced sobriety. AKA jail.”

 

Kamada also thrice sent a group of friends photos depicting his desk and case management screen, which showed case numbers, litigants’ names, events and document titles. In November 2018, he repeatedly used profanities in the group text to refer to a lawyer who had a dependency and neglect case before him, a case for which that lawyer apparently wasn’t prepared.

On Jan. 8, 2019, then-Gov. John Hickenlooper appointed Kamada to succeed Elizabeth Strobel as Weld District Court judge. That same month, Chacon asked about someone taken into custody by the Federal Bureau of Investigation. Kamada tried looking up the case, but could not find it. He surmised it was a federal case, according to court documents.

Also that month, Kamada presided over a divorce proceeding and sent a photo of the first page of the decree of dissolution to his friends. Kamada said he was “going to grant this today so she is free game tomorrow night,” court documents state.

Kamada also told a friend he had the friend’s brother-in-law in court, including a photo of a party involved in a custody battle. The photo was not the friend’s brother-in-law. Still that same month, Kamada sent the group a photo of a father and a child, saying, “check out the dad in my trial today.”

Finally, court documents noted Kamada’s leak about the 2019 drug trafficking investigation involving Alberto “Beto” Loya. Loya was sentenced in June to serve 10 years in prison after pleading guilty to conspiracy to possess with the intent to distribute a controlled substance, a Class 1 drug felony, and conspiracy to money launder, a Class 4 felony. He originally faced 21 charges but made a plea agreement with prosecutors.

Kamada resigned from the district court judge position a day before Greeley police announced Loya’s indictment and the arrest of some of his associates. A few days later, he formed Kamada Law, LLC, in Windsor. He took a job the following month with Burnham Law. In March, according to Kamada’s LinkedIn profile, he left Burnham Law for Kamada Law.

Kamada signed an agreement consenting to disbarment and accepting the facts laid out in the court documents. The agreement requires that he pay $224 to the Colorado Supreme Court Attorney Regulation Offices for costs incurred in the case.

Kamada is free on bond until his sentencing 2 p.m. Dec. 4. Court records indicate he likely faces 12-18 months of imprisonment and no fines. He faces at least one year of supervised release and no more than three years.

 

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Now disbarred, former Weld District Court judge’s misconduct described in new court documents 

As ex-judge faces possible prison time, those who appeared in his Greeley courtroom wonder why his judgements stand

Amanda Harmon poses for a portrait in Red Feather Lakes on Sept. 16, 2020.

By Sam Tabachnik

For most of her life, Amanda Harmon believed the courts were fair and just.

Save for a few traffic-related instances, Harmon had rarely dealt with legal issues. A courtroom didn’t give her anxiety. It didn’t give her fear.

But her whole perception of justice changed after her time in Judge Ryan Kamada’s Greeley courtroom.

“I knew right away he was crooked,” Harmon said. “There was something corrupt and vile about him.”

Her suspicions were confirmed, she said, when the former Weld County District Court judge pleaded guilty last year to obstructing a federal investigation into a large-scale cocaine trafficking organization.

A disciplinary investigation showed Kamada had also maintained long-running text chains with his friends, during which he disparaged those appearing in his court, mocked attorneys and joked about the safety of children as he decided on custody arrangements.

Kamada resigned from the bench last year, was disbarred this summer and soon could face prison time.

But while Kamada is no longer a judge, his rulings continue to be felt by Harmon and a host of other families, who are now expressing dismay, alleging their cases were tainted by the disgraced judge as they wonder how they can make their voices heard.

“All of these decisions are fruit of a poisoned tree,” Harmon said.

Investigation into Kamada

Kamada’s downfall began in October 2018, when a federal task force began investigating a drug trafficking organization that was distributing large amounts of cocaine throughout northern Colorado, according to the U.S. Attorney’s Office in Colorado. Investigators realized that Kamada had known one of the drug traffickers since high school.

Ryan Kamada

Just one month earlier, former Gov. John Hickenlooper had appointed Kamada to replace Elizabeth Strobel as a district court judge in Weld County.

In April 2019, Kamada received a call from a task force officer seeking a search warrant as part of an investigation into a suspected drug trafficker named Alberta Loya, according to the former judge’s admission of misconduct during his review before the Colorado Supreme Court. The officer noted that Kamada was friends with Loya on Facebook, prompting the judge to recuse himself from the case.

But the next morning, Kamada called his best friend, an assistant middle school principal named Geoffrey Chacon, who also grew up with Loya, investigators said. Kamada warned Chacon that authorities were following Loya and that his friend should stay away from him.

Chacon then notified Loya about the warrant, and changed his own behavior “in order to avoid law enforcement attention,” federal prosecutors said.

In August 2019, Kamada resigned from the bench. Two months later, Chacon pleaded guilty in federal court to one count of destruction of records with the intent to obstruct a federal investigation.

Loya was indicted on 21 counts related to drug trafficking activity, and pleaded guilty to felony counts of conspiracy to possess with the intent to distribute a controlled substance and conspiracy to launder money. He was sentenced to 10 years in prison in June.

Also in June, Kamada pleaded guilty to obstructing the federal investigation, and in August he was disbarred for violating eight different rules of professional and judicial conduct. He’s scheduled to be sentenced in federal court on Dec. 4, and could face between 12 and 41 months in prison, according to his plea agreement.

John Gleason, who represented Kamada during his disciplinary review process, told The Denver Post that “everything I’ve heard about him is that he was a great lawyer and great judge who simply made a mistake, and he’s paid dearly for it.”

Kamada, through his criminal defense attorney, declined to comment.

But during the Office of Attorney Regulation Counsel’s investigation into his misconduct, new details emerged about Kamada’s behavior during his time on the bench.

As a magistrate judge, Kamada would routinely text his friends information about people and cases in his courtroom, according to the stipulation filed with the Colorado Supreme Court, which deals with attorney discipline.

In one September 2016 exchange, a friend asked the judge to look up information on an individual.

That person, Kamada said, “wasn’t convicted of the sex assault but he was on other charges and ended up in (expletive) prison man … Oh yeah. He was (expletive) a 14-year-old and giving her cocaine. Don’t say anything man,” according transcripts of the text in the stipulation.

In a December 2016 group text, Kamada talked about a former client, saying, “I did her custody (expletive) and she is one strange cat. If that kid lives I’ll be shocked.”

Soon after beginning his role as a district court judge in January 2019, Kamada was presiding over a divorce proceeding, which included an allocation of parental rights.

Kamada texted a photo of the divorce papers, telling his friends that he was “going to grant this today so she is free game tomorrow night.”

Helen H. Richardson, The Denver Post

Amy Barton poses for a portrait in front of the Weld County Courthouse in Greeley on Sept. 30, 2020.

Fighting for new judgements

When Amy Barton heard these allegations, it confirmed her gut feeling that something just wasn’t right in Kamada’s courtroom.

She and her ex-husband appeared before Kamada four years ago for a child custody case and “the whole time in court, (Kamada) was picking his fingernails and you could tell he wasn’t paying attention,” Barton said. “He was completely checked out.”

For Barton and others who appeared before the judge, word of his indictment and disbarment served as a modicum of good news — “karma finally bit him in the (expletive),” she said.

But when several people appealed to get Kamada’s judgements vacated or their cases reheard, they were denied.

“It seems like the courts are trying to sweep it under the rug,” Harmon said.

While Kamada’s actions may be well-deserving of removal from the bench or disbarment, that does not mean that everything he touched gets to be relitigated, said Eli Wald, a professor and legal ethics scholar at the University of Denver’ Sturm College of Law.

“The thing we worry about most is the integrity of the proceedings and compliance with the law and perception of law and justice,” Wald said. “Unless there’s anything in the removal proceedings that causes us to doubt the integrity of the proceedings, the mere removal (of a judge) should not cause us to worry about revisiting every case.”

This feels like a miscarriage of justice, Barton and Harmon said. And it has both of them, along with others who dealt with Kamada, questioning their belief in the entire judicial system.

“It’s disheartening knowing this man was appointed to a position that is supposed to uphold ethics and be honorable, and he’s doing such skeezy stuff,” Barton said.

That hasn’t stopped a group from organizing to raise awareness. A group of about 15 parents who had Kamada preside over their cases started a Facebook group, with people talking about a filing a lawsuit or protesting in front of the courthouse. The court may not rehear their cases. But that doesn’t mean they’re going to be silent.

“It’s always strength in numbers,” Barton said. “If five of us say we want change, they can ignore us. But if we get hundreds, then they have to listen.”

 

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As ex-judge faces possible prison time, those who appeared in his Greeley courtroom wonder why his judgements stand