A federal lawsuit alleging discriminatory hiring practices at the Colorado Supreme Court is poised to shed light on the recent allegation that former Chief Justice Nathan “Ben” Coats and other court employees gave a contract worth up to $2.75 million to a former judicial employee to keep her from divulging the personal misconduct of 20 or more district court judges and administrators.

Retired Colorado Supreme Court Chief Justice Nathan Coats (web copy)

The Colorado Judicial Department has sent a memo to employees denying the allegation as reported in The Denver Post that the contract was intended to stop Mindy Masias, the former chief of staff of the Supreme Court administrator’s office, from filing a sexual discrimination lawsuit that would expose misconduct of others at the department.

Key players involved in giving the contract to Masias have either not responded to messages seeking comment or have declined to comment on the allegation made by Christopher Ryan, the former top court administrator in the state.

But people with ties to the disputed contract, including Ryan, who told The Post the contract was essentially hush money given out to Masias, must provide sworn testimony in a federal lawsuit filed by a 64-year-old Black lawyer, according to court rulings. And those scheduled to take the testimony plan to press to glean details on the contract and the allegations surrounding it during depositions.

The lawsuit filed by Michele Brown, who works for the Colorado Legislature, and her husband, Andrew Maikovich, claims the state Supreme Court discriminated against Brown when it decided against hiring her for a position as a rules attorney and instead hired a 33-year-old white woman who worked in the Supreme Court law library for that position.

The lawsuit alleges that the person who got the rules attorney post had an insider on the hiring panel who provided her with the interview questions and answers and tips on how to dress for the interview. The federal claim references specific emails obtained through an open records request showing the hiring panel insider — a Supreme Court staff attorney — coaching the successful job applicant during the hiring process in emails sprinkled with smiling face emojis.

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Lawyers representing the Judicial Department denied in court filings that the department exhibited bias against Brown in rejecting her for the position. Those defending the Judicial Department further contend that Brown and Maikovich failed to take advantage of any preventive or corrective opportunities the department offered them.

The couple say they want to probe how the disputed contract given to Masias was handled because they believe those details could reveal a pattern and practice of suppressing information about discrimination and harassment in Colorado’s judicial branch similar to what they contend they’ve experienced.

“We’re going to say that we have the same people who apparently were hiding misconduct at the same time in a different area, and we’re alleging that similar conduct happened in our case,” said Maikovich, an attorney in the state Judicial Department specializing in providing education.

Maikovich said one key document that they plan to obtain through court discovery is a memo from Eric Brown, drawn up when Brown was the Judicial Department’s human resource’s chief.

The memo allegedly detailed misconduct accusations Masias threatened she would disclose involving sitting judges and other court administrators in a discrimination lawsuit if she were fired for financial improprieties related to her travel expenses, according to recent accusations from Ryan.

Ryan has said Brown gave the memo to him, and that the memo prompted him to hold a meeting with Coats, then the chief justice, to detail the accusations and get Coats’ approval on giving the contract to Masias to ensure her silence.

Masias was allowed to resign in March 2019, with the expectation that she would benefit from the $2.75 million contract, which was designed to prevent her from filing a tell-all lawsuit, according to Ryan’s statements to The Post.

The terms of Masias’ resignation required her to provide a copy of a recording she made of then-Supreme Court Chief Justice Nancy Rice telling Masias why she was not promoted to the top court administrator post in 2017. On the recording, Rice told Masias that discrimination still existed in state government. Masias’ resignation terms also included a provision for her to receive payment of $34,800 in vacation time and sick leave, according to a performance audit from Colorado State Auditor Dianne Ray’s office released in November.

In the wake of the report on the allegation from Ryan, the auditor’s office, as part of a performance audit, will take a new look at the controversies surrounding the contract awarded to Masias, according to The Denver Post.

Reached at his home, Ryan, the former top court administrator, declined to elaborate on his accusations that the memo detailing Masias’ accusations prompted him and other high-ranking state court officials, including then Chief Justice Coats, to approve the five-year, judicial training contract worth as much as $2.75 million in March 2019 for Masias’ firm, The Leadership Practice. State records show that Masias, who formed her company while working at the Judicial Department, was awarded the sole source contract after she resigned from the department.

The contract was terminated in 2019 following news reports about it. In the ensuing criticism, Ryan and Brown resigned.

Ryan, who said he is talking with a lawyer, when reached at his home continued to stand by his accusations that the contract was a “quid pro quo” meant to ensure a soft landing for Masias that would keep her from divulging her misconduct allegations in a lawsuit. He said he would have more to say later. He has declined to provide details on which judges and administrators were named in the memo as engaging in alleged personal misconduct. Masias has not spoken publicly about the circumstances surrounding her resignation. Following the termination of the contract, she also has not come forward to divulge to the public any misconduct allegation against any judges or Judicial Department employees.

Coats, who retired in December, declined comment. Masias and Brown did not return telephone calls and emails seeking comment.

The Judicial Department has declined to make the memo from Brown public. Judicial Department spokesman Robert McCallum previously has maintained that department officials believe the memo is a work product protected from disclosure even though the memo was not drafted by an attorney.

Maikovich said he and his wife believe they’ll have standing as litigants to obtain the memo and question judicial officials about the memo. A federal magistrate has given them permission to depose Coats, Ryan, Brown and Masias — all of whom would have knowledge of the memo’s contents.

For now, the depositions have not occurred because the couple suing want to take the sworn testimony in person and video record those testifying. In-person depositions currently are on hold due to concerns over the coronavirus pandemic.

Maikovich said he and his wife have chosen to handle their case on their own rather than hire a lawyer to represent them in part because most lawyers likely would have conflicts due to knowing Supreme Court judges or people working for the Supreme Court administrator’s office. In an ironic twist, Michele Brown is the daughter of a former chairman of the U.S. Equal Employment Opportunity Commission.

Already, two of the federal magistrates that were handling the case have ended up recusing themselves due to potential conflicts of interests. U.S. District Magistrate Michael Hegarty is currently presiding over the case.

“We’re looking forward to taking depositions and obtaining more information on the memo, and the potential misconduct it details, only so far as it has any reflection on our case,” Maikovich said.

They demanded in their discovery requests that the Judicial Department provide details of any charges, allegations or complaints of discrimination based on race, national origin, age, or harassment filed formally or informally against the Judicial Department by any employee or judicial officer since 2016. That information has been provided by the department, though a protective order currently bars disclosure of the information, Maikovich said.

In the couple’s lawsuit, the wife, Brown, claims she was far more qualified than the applicant the Colorado Supreme Court ended up hiring in May 2018 as a rules attorney.

The job went to Kathryn Michaels, then 33, and a law librarian who worked at the Ralph L. Carr Colorado Judicial Center, where Supreme Court justices work, instead of to Brown. The lawsuit states that Brown, in her job in the legislative legal services office, had three years of direct experience working with state Supreme Court rules and close interaction with the former Supreme Court rules attorney. Michaels had no such experience with Supreme Court rules, the lawsuit states.

Maikovich raised concerns that his wife had been discriminated against during the hiring process, informing his colleagues, Ryan, then the top court administrator, and then Masias, at that time Ryan’s chief of staff. Those two eventually included Eric Brown, who then was in charge of human resources for the department. The Judicial Department eventually asked the director of Human Resources of Missouri state courts to investigate the matter as a consultant.

The husband and wife contend in their lawsuit that the investigation was a sham. They also contend that the Judicial Department required Maikovich as terms of his employment with the department to submit to interviews with the investigator from Missouri. Maikovich contends that requirement violated his constitutional rights to marital privacy and was done to try to develop a roadmap for defeating the couple’s assertions of bias.