Douglas County Special Victims Detective Stephanie Dorrell found “possible child pornography.” No report. No determination. No DCSO referral to the FBI.Silence is a crime under Colorado law. Still employed at DCSO.

Det. Stephanie Dorrell described the next step. No record shows it was taken.

Det. Stephanie Dorrell was not guessing. Her own September 2022 police report, as read into the court record, said she “identified images that she believed to be depicting 15 to 18-year-old females.” Asked under oath what a Special Victims officer does next when a phone is reported to hold such images, she said: “further investigate what the pictures are of.” (16:14–17:4) No record shows that was done here. The standard way to find out “what the pictures are of” is a hash check: a computer compares each file's digital fingerprint against national databases of known child sexual abuse images, so no one has to guess from how a picture looks.

She admitted she could not tell the girls' ages by looking, that hash values “can be used,” and that none was run here. In an offer of proof, defense counsel described her report:

Asked about a hypothetical phone found on the street:

Here she knew whose phone it was, and that children also used it. (15:9–11) No determination of what the images were appears in any record.

Det. Stephanie Dorrell, a seasoned Special Victims detective, flagged suspected child pornography of girls 15 to 18. Under oath — as a witness for the phone's owner — she hedged.

Det. Stephanie Dorrell wrote that report herself in September 2022, in a case that had nothing to do with these pictures. Thirteen years in, she has handled “devices with child pornography” before. Her trained judgment then: 15-to-18-year-old females. Two years later the phone owner's lawyer called her to the stand. On that lawyer's redirect, “girls 15 to 18” became “we can't determine.”

Her 2022 report: girls 15 to 18. Under oath in 2024: “possible,” then “we can't determine.” What would it have taken to determine it? A hash check — the tool she admitted exists, and never ran. Either way, no report was made. And “not illegal” is not hers to decide: federal law can make a drawing a crime, as shown below.

The law required a report within 24 hours. There is no record of one.

Colorado law does not leave this to discretion. A peace officer with “reasonable cause to know or suspect that a child has been subjected to abuse” — which includes sexual exploitation of a child — must make a separate report to Human Services, law enforcement or the state hotline within twenty-four hours. Here is the law, line by line, beside the record.

A separate report was required. We have found no record that one was ever made. If none was, every officer who had reasonable cause to suspect and stayed silent broke Colorado law — a class 2 misdemeanor. Peace officers are trained mandatory reporters; the penalty is no secret to them. Will any of them turn themselves in? And should they still be wearing a badge? The three-year deadline to prosecute has likely run (§ 19-3-304(5)) — so no court may ever ask. This page does.

Sgt. Adam Moorman found “No policy violations” — in a failure the law makes a crime

No policy violations. Yet state law required a report within twenty-four hours, and Colorado makes willfully failing to make it a crime. If the Sheriff's Office policy permits that, the policy is the problem. If it does not, the review was wrong. And the review was done by the detective's own supervisor. Should a unit's own sergeant review a complaint about his own unit?

Isn't it Internal Affairs' job to investigate — not to tell the person complaining to go find new information?

Prosecutors Yosef Ratner and Chad Atkins could not say what the images were — and moved on

Until January 2025, Douglas County was part of Colorado's 18th Judicial District, and that District Attorney's office prosecuted its cases. The county is now part of the new 23rd Judicial District.

Did the prosecutors even ask? Under oath, the detective was asked: “Did the District Attorney ever ask you whether or not those images had been investigated?” Her answer: “I don't remember.” (14:22–24)

So which is it? If no one had determined whether these images were child pornography, how could anyone decide there was nothing to prosecute? “Based on what we've ever seen” — with no hash check run, no report on record, and the Special Victims detective herself calling them possible child pornography. A prosecutor cannot weigh evidence no one has identified.

Federal crimes — and Lt. Jenny McMillan said the FBI need not be told

Possessing child sexual abuse images is a federal crime too: federal law punishes anyone who “knowingly possesses, or knowingly accesses with intent to view, any book, magazine, periodical, film, videotape, computer disk, or any other material that contains an image of child pornography” that has moved in interstate commerce, “including by computer.” 18 U.S.C. § 2252A(a)(5)(B).

And it is not only photographs. Federal law also makes it a crime to knowingly possess “a visual depiction of any kind, including a drawing, cartoon, sculpture, or painting,” that “depicts a minor engaging in sexually explicit conduct” and “is obscene.” 18 U.S.C. § 1466A(b)(1). The child does not have to be real: “It is not a required element of any offense under this section that the minor depicted actually exist.” § 1466A(c). The detective called “95 percent” of the images anime or hentai and “not illegal.” Did anyone check whether any of it depicted children?

A state prosecutor told the court: “I don't believe it's anything that a federal prosecution would ever proceed forward on.” (Day 2, 4:6–7) He is not the federal prosecutor. Defense counsel said so in the same hearing: “I don't think they can speak for the -- for the federal government.” (Day 2, 5:7–8) DCSO did not ask the one who can. The Sheriff's Office has had a route to the FBI's own lab: in 2013 it was listed as one of thirteen partner agencies in the Rocky Mountain Regional Computer Forensics Laboratory, a digital-evidence lab the FBI provides and equips — and the 18th Judicial District Attorney's office was another. FBI Denver, 2013. Whether it still was in 2022 is not in our records.

A school and Human Services heard “investigated.” The family says CBI was told DCSO was not investigating.

The phone belonged to an adult who later taught at a local school. Under oath, the detective said no hash check was run. The head of a Douglas County school wrote this:

If that is what the Sheriff's Office told a local school, is telling a school something its own detective contradicted under oath part of DCSO protocol?

Human Services heard the same thing. The detective was assigned to Human Services itself. When a family member complained to Human Services, she was told the Sheriff's Office investigator had said the matter had been investigated. Is that the officer who should be the Sheriff's Office's link to Human Services?

And the state was told the opposite. CBI and NCMEC representatives were told by the Sheriff's Office that it was not going to investigate — that is what they told the family. The CBI agent, in the family's note from that day, “says he can't do anything.” By law, CBI assists in a local case “When assistance is requested by any sheriff, chief of police, district attorney” or other chief law enforcement officer. C.R.S. § 24-33.5-412(1)(a)(I). There is no record the Sheriff's Office ever asked.

Human Services had no referral number. Why did it take the Sheriff's Office's word?

A child-abuse report to the state hotline or a county Human Services department gets a “referral identification number.” When someone calls about a matter that was already reported, Human Services may give them “the referral identification number from the earlier” report, and that caller “is deemed to have fulfilled their reporting responsibility.” C.R.S. § 19-3-307(1)(b). Human Services had no such number. Human Services records response So when the family called, there was no earlier report on file to point to — only the Sheriff's Office's word that it had been “investigated.”

Human Services is not a bystander here. Its own officials and employees are mandatory reporters. § 19-3-304(2)(ll). The law says nothing stops Human Services “from generating a new report if there is additional or different information.” § 19-3-307(1)(b). And for abuse inside a family, the county department is “the agency responsible for the coordination of all investigations.” § 19-3-308(4)(a).

With no referral number on file, why did Human Services not ask the Sheriff's Office for the report? Why was the family's call not taken as a new one? And why was the family sent back to the word of the same office whose detective was assigned to Human Services?

A decision to look the other way is not discretion. It is abdication.

The duty of the Sheriff and his deputies is “to keep and preserve the peace in their respective counties.” C.R.S. § 30-10-516. Colorado's Supreme Court has said: “failure to exercise discretion is itself an abuse of discretion.” People v. Darlington, 105 P.3d 230, 232 (Colo. 2005) (reviewing a trial judge's ruling). The U.S. Supreme Court has drawn the same line for government agencies: a policy of not acting can be “so extreme as to amount to an abdication of its statutory responsibilities.” Heckler v. Chaney, 470 U.S. 821, 833 n.4 (1985).

Judge Kolony Fields: “destroy the evidence and -- or give it back.” No one was told to identify it.

In a criminal case, the law says such material “shall remain in the care, custody, and control of either the prosecution, a law enforcement agency, or the court.” C.R.S. § 16-9-601(2). Here, a copy of the phone holding what the detective called “possible child pornography” was handed to the defense in discovery. County Court Judge Kolony Fields heard it on two consecutive days.

Every criminal-court judge knows that possessing this material is itself a crime — and this one practiced as a public defender before taking the bench. The court's answer was a protective order, removal of the images from the discovery copy, and destruction or return of that copy after the case. In these transcripts, the court never orders anyone to find out what the images were, or who the girls in them were. At least two judges, in two different courts, heard on the record that possible child pornography sat in evidence unidentified. Not their department, perhaps. But judges here work with the same prosecutors and detectives week after week — and many practiced alongside them before they ever put on a robe. So why did no judge order anyone to find out what these images were?

Sheriff Darren Weekly: who is the Sheriff's Office serving and protecting?

Darren Weekly has been Sheriff of Douglas County since January 2023. The service inquiry that cleared his detective, the decision not to tell the FBI, and the denial of the request for what his office told outside agencies all happened on his watch. Four days after that denial, he announced a different arrest by the same Special Victims Unit:

The same unit never determined what the images on this phone were. This is Douglas County, where the District Attorney says anyone who comes “to steal from us” should expect “incarceration.” CBS Colorado, Jan. 9, 2025. How many people has the Sheriff's Office arrested for possessing a single image? Yet possible child pornography sat in the Sheriff's Office's own evidence, unidentified, unreported, and never referred to the FBI by DCSO. If this is how one case was handled, how many others were handled the same way?

Sheriff Weekly is a candidate for County Sheriff on the November 3, 2026 general-election ballot.

Five more officials who owe answers

Four years, and still no answer

1. September 2022The SVU detective's police report says she “identified images that she believed to be depicting 15 to 18-year-old females” (as read into the court record). No report to Human Services or the hotline appears in any record.
2. 2023Deputy DA Ratner tells the court the detective did not think there was anything to prosecute, and admits no determination was ever made. Deputy DA Nathaniel Marsh also appears for the People.
3. 2023Deputy DA Atkins: “not in a position to say” whether it is child pornography — and doubts a federal prosecution would ever proceed.
4. 2023The court says the images must be removed from the discovery copy and tells defense counsel “you need to destroy the evidence” or give it back after the case. No one is ordered to identify them.
5. April 11, 2024A DCSO internal service inquiry finds “No policy violations.”
6. 2024Under oath: no hash check. “I have never personally done it in any of my cases.”
7. September 23, 2024Internal Affairs: not enough reason to tell the FBI.
8. October 18, 2024DCSO denies, as too broad, a records request for what it told CBI, the FBI, Human Services, Safe2Tell and local schools.
9. October 20, 2024A family member calls the Colorado Bureau of Investigation. Her note from that day: the CBI agent “says he can't do anything.” By statute, CBI assists a local case when a sheriff or district attorney asks (§ 24-33.5-412(1)(a)(I)).
10. October 22, 2024Announcing a different arrest, Sheriff Weekly says protecting children is the office's “highest priority.”
11. TodayNo public record of any identification, any report, any referral, or any explanation.

What has to happen now

1. Identify the images. If the material is still in law-enforcement custody, CBI or the Internet Crimes Against Children task force can hash-check it and assess the ages of the people shown.
2. Send it to the FBI. Federal law covers both the photographs and the drawings. The FBI should decide what is a federal crime — not a county Internal Affairs office.
3. Make the report. Human Services should open the review the law required in 2022, for the children who used that phone.
4. Release the records. The Sheriff's Office should publish what it told CBI, the FBI, Human Services, Safe2Tell and the school.
5. Reopen the internal review — this time outside the detective's own unit, and measured against § 19-3-304.

Records requests are being sent to the Sheriff's Office, the 18th and 23rd Judicial District Attorneys, and the Colorado Bureau of Investigation. Every answer will be published here — including any that show the images were identified or reported.

Not in Colorado? The same rules apply where you live.

This happened in Douglas County, Colorado. It can happen anywhere. Federal law reaches every state: possessing child sexual abuse images is a federal crime, and so is possessing an obscene drawing or cartoon of a minor in sexually explicit conduct. 18 U.S.C. §§ 2252A(a)(5)(B), 1466A(b). And every state names in law the people who must report suspected child abuse. At least 40 states and the District of Columbia name law-enforcement officers specifically, and federal law requires every state to have reporting rules. Child Welfare Information Gateway, “Mandatory Reporting of Child Abuse and Neglect” (current through May 2023); 42 U.S.C. § 5106a(b)(2)(B)(i).

Every quotation on this page carries its transcript page and line, and every legal point its statute or case. Use them. If police or prosecutors set aside possible child sexual abuse material where you live, report it to the NCMEC CyberTipline at report.cybertip.org or the FBI at tips.fbi.gov — and tell us what happened.