Colorado Rep. demands criminal charges in COVID death revisions

By John Ransom

In Colorado, the fight over reclassification of COVID-19 deaths has just turned criminal.

Rep. Mark Baisley, (R) Roxborough Park, has requested the local district attorney investigate such reclassifications.

“It has been brought to my attention that Jill Ryan, Executive Director of the Colorado Department of Public Health and Environment, has on several occasions committed deliberate acts of certificate falsification in violation of Colorado Revised Statute,” said Baisley in a letter to district attorney George Brauchler.

Baisley cites Colorado Revised Statute 25-1-114 that says it’s unlawful for anyone to willfully alter a certificate of death.  

Colorado has been at the forefront of allegations that public health officials are revising causes of death for political purposes.

Someren Glen, a nursing home facility in the Denver metro area, wrote a letter to families stating that Colorado’s Department of Public Health and Environment overruled attending physicians’ causes of death determination.

In at least one instance the patient was in hospice care at the time of death. 

While some coroners in the state have dismissed the concerns as “well within the ballpark of ‘the earth is flat,’” at least one coroner is also questioning the state’s numbers.

Montezuma County Coroner George Deavers said that the state reclassified one death to COVID-19 that was caused by alcohol poisoning. The deceased had a blood alcohol reading of 0.55 or almost twice the lethal limit of 0.3.

“COVID was not listed on the death certificate as the cause of death,” said Deavers. “I disagree with the state for listing it as a COVID death, and will be discussing it with them this week.”

The allegations are not confined to Colorado either.

Previously Pennsylvania had to remove 200 cases of COVID-19-attributed deaths from their death toll after coroners in the state came forward to dispute the state’s numbers.  

Last week Elon Musk told podcaster Joe Rogan: “Then if somebody dies, was COVID a primary cause of the death or not? I mean, if somebody has COVID, gets eaten by a shark, we find their arm, their arm has COVID, it’s going to get recorded as a COVID death.”

The Colorado case is the first time for which we can verify that criminal charges will be sought for deliberately falsifying COVID-19 numbers.

If convicted, the charges are classified as a criminal misdemeanor subject to $1,000 fine and not more than one year in the county jail, plus costs for detention. However, Colorado Statute specifically says that even with a conviction, offenders are subject to civil penalties — like a lawsuit from a nursing home that has an injured reputation or aggrieved family members.