DENVER — A former female prosecutor for the Denver District Attorney has been disbarred from practicing law after making false sexual harassment claims against a male colleague, fabricating text messages to support the accusations, and destroying evidence in a failed cover-up attempt.
Byron M. Large, the presiding disciplinary judge for the Colorado Supreme Court issued the disbarment ruling against Yujin Choi–who previously worked in the family violence unit at the DA’s office–on Dec. 31 after a two-year investigation. The accusations led to Dan Hines, a criminal investigator in the office, being reassigned to another area so that he would not be near his accuser.
“Unremitting honesty must at all times be the backbone of the legal profession,” the ruling said in part. “When a lawyer repeatedly employs deceit and dishonesty to harm another person, that lawyer corrodes the integrity of the profession and threatens to compromise public confidence in the legal system.
“Such behavior seriously adversely reflects on the lawyer’s fitness to practice law and should be met with disbarment.”
The ruling lays out how Hines, who filed a lawsuit against former Denver District Attorney Beth McCann, had both his personal life and professional career ruined by the accusations and fallout from the subsequent investigation.
“Though the investigation exonerated him, the allegations nevertheless left an ‘indelible mark’ on him reputationally,” the ruling reads.
The disbarment was scheduled to become official in early February.
Fabricated claims
Choi was initially fired in 2022 after an internal investigation revealed she fabricated the entire incident.
The disbarment order outlines an elaborate plan and cover-up attempt where Choi created fake text messages that she showed to her coworkers. Then when she was convinced to report it to her superiors, she doctored her cellphone records to “prove” the messages came from Hines.
However, when asked to allow investigators access to her phone and laptop, Choi then claimed she accidentally dropped her iPhone into a bathtub and spilled a bottle of water on her laptop, just hours before she was due to turn them over, ruining the devices and rendering the recovery essentially useless.
George Brauchler, elected DA in the newly formed 23rd Judicial District of Colorado (Douglas, Elbert and Lincoln counties), said internal cases like this are tough, adding, it’s always prudent to ask an outside DA’s office to look into the matter.
“When you make a decision about bad stuff under your own roof, if you don’t proceed, people wonder if you are sweeping it under the rug,” Brauchler said of the Dnver DA’s office. “That’s why you go to people outside and say, ‘what do you think?’”
The issue began in October 2022 when Choi texted her immediate supervisor that she wanted to share a “disgusting text that I got from a person in our office.”
Choi said the text called her a “sex doll.”
At that time, Choi refused to name who the text came from and was “adamant” she did not want to report the text to the front office, the ruling said.
That same night, Choi also told colleagues she was having drinks with about the message and told them it came from Hines.
“Yujin, please stop talking about what I didn’t do to our colleagues,” the message read according to the ruling. “You are using your looks against innocent people. If you want to act like a sex doll to get a sugar daddy . . . fine, but that will not be me.” Choi claimed to have deleted that message.
Other messages Choi claimed came from Hines said “Don’t be stupid,” “Let’s talk,” and “I’m sorry, hope you have a nice weekend.”
All messages were initially shared with Choi’s supervisors as screen shots. When asked for additional proof she handed over call logs that were supposedly from her wireless provider, Verizon. However, call logs Hines turned over did not show he had texted Choi during the times she claimed.
The cover-up
Both Hines and Choi initially consented to allow investigators to extract messages from their phones, and Choi agreed to allow them to extract any evidence from her laptop.
However, according to the ruling, on the Friday before Choi was supposed to turn over her electronics, she appeared nervous and anxious, at one point telling another supervisor she felt she was had no choice but to consent, but that she could “just factory reset.”
The next day, Choi claimed, she drew herself a bath to relax but accidentally dropped her phone in the tub, and then shortly after said she was “rattled,” and dropped an open bottle of water all over her laptop, rendering both pieces of electronics useless for extraction.
That Monday, Choi appeared at work “laughing, joking and ‘giddy,’ displaying a 180 degree in shift of attitude,” from the previous Friday, the ruling reads.
A few days later, investigators got a subpoena to acquire the records directly from Verizon, which proved Hines never sent any of those messages to Choi. Rather, the Verizon records showed that Choi both sent and received SMS messages at the times in question.
The fallout
In the disbarment ruling, Large determined that Choi:
- Manufactured four text messages.
- Disseminated them to several coworkers and supervisors while falsely asserting the messages were from Hines.
- Altered her Verizon Wireless message log.
- Destroyed her phone and laptop to avoid having them examined.
“That (Choi) disseminated these texts evinces her intent to deceive her coworkers, supervisors, and the DA’s Office in general,” the ruling reads. “When she affirmatively showed or described these forged messages to (others, Choi) perpetrated a false and harmful narrative that Hines had sexually harassed her by sending her these messages.”
Large continued that Choi “embarked on this course of action intentionally. (Choi) not only knew she was creating false messages but did so with the conscious objective to malign Hines. (Choi’s) fabrication of false messages reflects adversely on her fitness to practice because it undermines the pursuit of truth.”
The Denver DA’s Office referred the case to the Larimer County District Attorney for potential criminal investigation, but that office declined to press any charges.
Brauchler said sexual harassment is generally civil in nature, adding that situations like this are also more of an employment complaint and not a criminal one, and that non-prosecution is not necessarily problematic.
“It made it much more public and shows that the system doesn’t knee jerk react to ever single accusation of sexual harassment,” he said.
The disbarment ruling is available here.
