Prosecutor disciplined over ties to OtterBox manufacturer | Colorado Watch [Video]

Blue Ocean Enterprises, an investment firm founded by the wealthy manufacturer of the popular OtterBox smartphone protective cases, was able to rely on an ally to criminally prosecute the firm’s former business partners and their associates over a failed business deal.

In an arrangement one legal expert later called the type that “breeds cynicism in the criminal justice system,” the lawyer Blue Ocean Enterprises paid to lobby for criminal charges jumped from his private practice to join the government’s prosecution team.

Two defendants have sued, claiming they were wrongly accused of running an organized criminal enterprise. Their lawsuit contends one of the lawyers who prosecuted them was dishonest and blinded by his own conflict of interests.

That lawyer offered up his services as a “special deputy” prosecutor, for free for the government, in this case the Larimer County District Attorney’s Office. He then presented the case to a grand jury …