An attorney representing Wayne McDonald, a former Hancock friend and city employee fired in 2012 for his own alleged behavior toward Branch-Wise, is now demanding a review of all lawyers who played a role in a $75,000 payment to the detective by the City of Denver over the matter. The 2013 settlement precludes Branch-Wise from suing Hancock, even though his texts to her (including one that asked her if she'd ever taken a pole-dancing class) were not known to McDonald's legal team in 2016, when they accepted $200,000 to resolve a lawsuit filed after his firing four years earlier.
Anne Sulton was the original attorney on McDonald's complaint circa 2012. After she retired, her son, William Sulton, took over the case and has said plans are afoot to sue Denver again because of Hancock's allusion to McDonald in his apology video to Branch-Wise and the city's failure to disclose his texts to her, which would have potentially prompted a larger settlement.
However, Anne is now back on board and is the author of a letter to Kirsten Crawford, legislative counsel for the Denver City Council, regarding a "Demand for Litigation Hold."
William Sulton began handling the lawsuit filed by Wayne McDonald in 2012 after the retirement of his mother, fellow attorney Anne Sulton.
The introduction to the letter gets straight to the point: "I am asking the Colorado Supreme Court's Office of Attorney Regulation Counsel to review the conduct of all attorneys involved in the payment of $75,000 to Leslie Branch-Wise on or about June 28, 2013."
Another passage, with several words appearing in bold and underlined, stresses that the matter involves both McDonald and Hancock. It reads: "To facilitate my request for a review, I hearby formally demand that your office identify all persons, communications and documents, and place a litigation hold on any and all documents, relating to this $75,000 payment and any and all other payments and/or benefits made to or conferred upon Ms. Wise relating to Wayne McDonald and/or Mayor Michael Hancock."
The types of communications Anne wants to see are varied. The term "document" is said to include but is not limited to dozens of different formats, including papers, emails, text messages, videotapes, audio tapes, WAV files and more.
The letter states that the materials should be assembled and produced on or before April 16, and while there's no mention that a new lawsuit is on the way, this prospect is impossible to miss.
The resulting pile could potentially represent a much greater legal risk for Hancock than any sanction by the Denver City Council, which has emphasized for weeks that it has no power to punish the mayor even if it was determined that he had sexually harassed Branch-Wise.
Click to read the Anne Sulton demand letter.
