Image

Victims

Carol Hebert

Murdered

Hal Hebert

Victim

Murder

Richard White

Murder

Corrupt

Stephanie Villafuerte

Nominee Attorney

Beth McCann

Nominee Attorney
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Carol Hebert

The body of a 54-year-old Carol Hebert was found in the trunk of a car that had been abandoned in east Denver. There was no indication of a stranger’s involvement, so police reflexively decided to arrest the victim’s husband, even though they had no evidence of his involvement, either.

Beth McCann

Denver police and prosecutors pooled resources to cobble together a case to present to a Denver jury. DA Beth McCann now says the evidence presented was "overwhelming." But she doesn't mention that almost all of it was false, perjurious, or misrepresented; and she knows it.

Detective Martin E. Vigil

Within hours of Mr. Hebert's arrest, Denver police realized they had no viable cause for holding him. The lead investigator (Detective Martin E. Vigil) immediately announced to news media that Mr. Hebert's clothes were "bloody." He repeated that statement in sworn courtroom testimony, Laboratory tests later revealed there was no trace of blood on Mr. Hebert's clothes. Detective Vigil also ordered his forensics technicians to ignore clues that any outsider may have entered the home.

Richard White

Richard White was one of the witnesses who "remembered" crucial prosecution evidence during interrogation by Detective Vigil. Mr. White's testimony about a gun sale provided the necessary basis for co-prosecutor Kerri Lombardi to state directly to the jury that "(Mr. Hebert) planned...Six weeks prior to the crime... He purchased a .22 caliber...He practiced shooting that weapon...".

Kerri Lombardi

Lombardi's statement to the jury was a lie and the prosecution team knew it. Richard White's pivotal, but false, testimony provided the prosecution with the necessary elements of this murder conviction: possession of the weapon and premeditation.

Richard White

10 weeks after Hal Hebert’s trial, police and prosecutors learned that their star witness Richard White, whom they coached to provide false testimony, was a serial killer. White had entered another victim's home; he shot the victim in the head; he robbed the victim, and then he drove off in the victim's vehicle.

Kerri Lombardi

The same Denver police homicide Squad investigated. Then Mr. White was charged (by none other than Kerri Lombardi) with 52 major felonies including nine murders, eleven rapes, seven kidnappings, and many robberies and firearms violations. Ms. Lombardi provided a plea deal which allowed Mr. White to avoid death a penalty prosecution by quietly accepting a sentence of three consecutive life terms plus 144 more years. The same judge imposed the sentence as had presided over the trial of Hal Hebert. All the involved government officials withheld the bizarre revelation of Richard White's astonishing and grisly criminality from Mr. Hebert's defense.

Richard White

Mr. White has since sworn that his testimony at Mr. Hebert's trial consisted only of "what the police and prosecutors wanted to hear." In prison, Mr. White has bragged to other inmates that he actually had committed many more crimes than he was actually charged with, including the murder of Carol Hebert. Current DA Beth McCann now contends that the three-person prosecution team in Hebert's trial were "ethical" and there's "no evidence" they had engaged in any "wrongdoing." Her position is so obviously incorrect as to force the conclusion that she has never glanced at the record, or she has chosen to brazenly lie about immutable facts.

Kerri Lombardi

Kerri Lombardi presented information to a jury that the team knew to be false, even though her duty was to seek justice and not a conviction. When she learned her most important witness was actually a prolific criminal who had been coached to deliver false testimony in his effort to divert police attention, Ms. Lombardi concealed the information, ignoring the direction of The Supreme Court of The United States.

Detective Martin E. Vigil

Lead detective Martin E. Vigil was well-known amongst police and Denver DA prosecutors for strong-arm tactics in his interrogations of suspects and witnesses alike. In the trial of Hal Hebert, Detective Vigil suborned false testimony from civilian witnesses, provided false testimony himself, falsified physical evidence, and withheld information that would have helped the defense, Vigil's tactics have resulted in reversals in at least two other murder convictions.

Stephanie Villafuerte

During Hal Hebert's trial, Stephanie Villafuerte orchestrated perjurious testimony from five Denver police officers. Her artful questioning elicited consistent and repeated misrepresentation of blood "evidence," in areas where there was actually none, a fact Ms. Villafuerte was well aware of. A conviction supported by testimony known by the prosecution to be misrepresentative is perjury and a denial of due process, Miller v. Pate (Supreme Ct, 1967). Buoyed by convictions in high-profile cases like Hebert's, Bill Ritter, then DA, became Governor. Ms. Villafuerte, who was romantically involved with Ritter, followed him into the Capitol as his chief of Staff, Governor Ritter then used his political strength to nominate her to the prestigious position of United States Attorney for the state of Colorado. She was approved by the Department of Justice and by President Obama himself. But then some discomforting questions began to emerge regarding potential felony campaign violations. They included illegal conniving with her old colleagues in the DA's office in order to gather dirt from a restricted criminal database for use against an opponent; and apparent misappropriation, of tens of thousands of dollars, intended for the Ritter campaign, to her own name. Ms. Villafuerte denied any wrongdoing, but humiliatingly resigned from the U.S. Attorney nomination and receded from the public spotlight; whereupon the FBI obligingly closed their investigation of her activities.

Detective Martin E. Vigil

Lead detective Martin E. Vigil was well-known amongst police and Denver DA prosecutors for strong-arm tactics in his interrogations of suspects and witnesses alike. In the trial of Hal Hebert, Detective Vigil suborned false testimony from civilian witnesses, provided false testimony himself, falsified physical evidence, and withheld information that would have helped the defense, Vigil's tactics have resulted in reversals in at least two other murder convictions.

Stephanie Villafuerte

Stephanie Villafuerte, nominee to be Colorado's U.S. Attorney, has denied any involvement in the illegal access of restricted federal database in order to help Bill Ritter's campaign for Governor.

Oct. 23, 2009 Villafuerte withdrew after Denver talk show host Peter Boyles, raised bright red flags about the 'culture of corruption' in her office.

Villafuert still declines to comment about the charges, and she has never publicly denied her intimate relationship with Governor Ritter. 

Beth McCann

In April of 2019, Hal Hebert wrote to Beth McCann, seeking an investigation with an end goal of a hearing. Ms. McCann replied with an encouraging invitation to apply for review in her Conviction Review Unit. Chief Deputy DA Maggie Conboy acknowledged to several of Mr. Hebert's supporters that a review was underway. Then nothing at all happened and the DA's office began denying ever having had a Conviction Review Unit. It is apparent that such a unit exists in Beth McCann's office when it serves her political purposes but otherwise vanishes as is convenient for her.

Beth McCann

Ms. McCann says the prosecution team "worked tirelessly in seeking justice for the victim and her family," and a review might "re-traumatize the victim's loved ones." Her hollow care for loved ones and their "re-traumatization" is nowhere mentioned in those documents. And if her concern is not mere cynicism, Ms. McCann would do well to remember the immutable fact: nobody loved Carol Hebert more than Hal Hebert. Ms. McCann says, "it is critical that confidentiality be preserved until the work is complete." Plainly, at the current rate, the investigation will never be done. Confidentiality serves the interests only of those who have something to hide--and Ms. McCann finally reveals the real reason for avoiding an honest examination: “It would damage careers".

Beth McCann

In June of 2020, after a year of supposed "internal review" had produced no (public) findings, the DA hired an "outside organization." Now Ms. McCann says the organization has not provided any information that supports Mr. Hebert's position. But there is no indication that the organization has produced information of any kind. So, after more than three years of so-called "investigation," nothing at all has been accomplished except to cynically stall off Mr. Hebert's reasonable request for a genuine review. Mr. Hebert is now 80 years old, and the DA's tactics are obviously very costly to him in terms of the consumption of his remaining time.

DA McCann should immediately utilize her administrative authority to convene a full evidentiary hearing in order to determine the truth, regardless of whose career might be damaged by their own past malfeasance; or she should resign from an office whose duties she shows no inclination for fulfilling. All Denver citizens should be reminded of Scott Shackford's advice in Reason Magazine: Only the naïve believe that cops and prosecutors can be relied on to follow the rules when trying to get a conviction." And, it should be added, the same warning applies when they are trying to preserve a conviction, as well.

Prosecutorial misconduct, ineffective defnse counsel, inexpert judges plague system

Thomas K. Carberry

First, we have a scourge of prosecutorial misconduct that has permeated our justice system for decades all over the country. Prosecutors commit misconduct because they know they can get away with it, and even if caught the courts probably will do nothing about. 

Second ineffective assistance of defense counsel happens routinely. 

Finally, we have courts filled with judges selected on the basis of who they know, rather on what they know. Our judiciary, both federal and state, and around the country, will do virtually anything to uphold a conviction. Our courts will do almost anything to let evidence in for the prosecution, no matter how spurious, and they will do almost anything to keep exculpatory evidence out. 

True judicial reform is needed

Bill Reynolds

A new office aimed at investigating complaints about judges. What's worse is that process is not open or transparent the judicial branch has a tendency to sweep wrongdoing under the rug.

Colorado's judges hold immeasurable power and can have huge sway over what information juries are able to consider. Other Judges have fallen far short of the standard.

The judicial branch ahas shown it is unwilling and unable to oversee its own. Engaging in a political and legislative process in an effort to retain their own power and the veil of secrecy is only more evidence of how far astray our judges have swayed from important norms.

Help Free An Innocent Man

SIGN THE PETITION

More Ways to Take action

Contact District Attorney McCann. Tell her you support her effort to bring justice to past false convictions:
beth.mccann@denverda.org, 720-913-9000

Please invite your friends to help as well…THANKS!

  1. Reply

    November 1, 2022
    Beth McCann, District Attorney
    2nd Judicial District
    201 West Colfax Avenue
    Denver, CO 80202

    District Attorney McCann:

    A man named Hal Hebert is serving a life sentence in a Colorado prison.

    Mr. Hebert says that your office falsely convicted him of murder in 2003 by knowingly presenting fabricated evidence and perjury; and then failed to notify his defense team of extraordinary exculpatory evidence which should have already resulted in a new trial.

    I have read the transcripts and affidavits. Mr. Hebert is right. There is indisputable proof that Denver police and Deputy District Attorneys engaged in misconduct which cheated him out of a fair trial and his liberty.

    You have responded to his claims by initiating a review more than three years ago. You engaged in an “independent reviewing organization” and thereafter published a “message” to Denver citizens that says Mr. Hebert’s allegations are “erroneous information,” and the “reviewing organization” has (conveniently) “found absolutely no evidence” that substantiates his claims.

    The fact that an organization hired by you supports your stance in this matter is hardly surprising. But it certainly invites skepticism. Any truly independent review of this case will find irrefutable proof of astonishing prosecutorial misconduct. It is apparent in the record.

    According to your office’s own communications, more than three years have passed since the beginning of your review of Mr. Hebert’s case. It’s time for the public to finally learn the name of the “independent reviewing organization” and to at last see its report on which you rely.

    Please send this information to me at your earliest convenience.

    Thank you sincerely,

    A Narat
    4493 Run Road
    New Tripoli, PA 18066

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