Colorado Attorney General Phil Weiser announced Sept. 28 his office charged former executive staff members of the Adams County Sheriff’s Office for allegedly carrying out a scheme to falsify records and claim credit for state-mandated law enforcement training they didn’t complete.
According to a press release from the AG’s Office, former Adams County Sheriff Richard Reigenborn, former Undersheriff Thomas McLallen and former Division Chief Michael Bethel are accused of signing various training rosters for classes they didn’t attend and/or submitting training certificates to Colorado Peace Officer Standards and Training in an attempt to count these allegedly fictitious trainings toward their 2021 mandatory annual training hours. Colorado POST is a unit in the Colorado Department of Law overseeing the training and certification of peace officers in the state.
According to an arrest affidavit, Bethel also allegedly used McLallen’s account password to log onto one of McLallen’s online accounts to complete training for McLallen, the AG’s Office noted.
Colorado peace officers are required to complete a minimum of 24 hours of annual in-service training, including at least 12 hours of perishable skills training in arrest control, driving and firearms. Colorado POST can suspend a peace officer’s certification if the peace officer fails to meet the annual training requirements.
Law enforcement agencies are also responsible for submitting truthful and accurate data to Colorado POST and a law enforcement agency can lose access to POST grant funds if it’s found to be out of compliance with POST training rules, the AG’s Office said.
Colorado Revised Statute 24-31-307(3), authorizes the AG to enforce violations of POST training standards and impose fines or bring criminal charges if the violation is knowingly or intentional, the AG’s announcement added.
“A foundation of effective policing is reliable and sound training. Well-trained officers build community trust and confidence in law enforcement. We’ll continue to take seriously any allegation of efforts to disregard state-mandated training or submit fraudulent training records to POST,” Weiser said in a press release.
The AG’s Office said all three individuals are charged with felony counts of forgery, attempt to influence a public servant, conspiracy to commit forgery and conspiracy to attempt to influence a public servant. The cases are filed in Denver District Court under case numbers 23CR05655 (McLallen), 23CR05656 (Bethel) and 23CR05657 (Reigenborn).
Peace officers face revocation of their POST certification if they are convicted of a felony, the AG’s Office noted.