A federal judge vented her frustration at a pair of civil rights attorneys last month for continuing to protest her finding that sanctions are warranted in the wake of their client's refusal to turn over evidence to the defense.

Sasha Cronick is pursuing claims of unreasonable search and seizure and false arrest against Colorado Springs officers who handcuffed her minutes after she helped resuscitate a man who had stopped breathing from a drug overdose. This spring, the federal appeals court based in Denver agreed two officers will stand trial for their alleged constitutional violations.

However, the officers separately argued Cronick deliberately withheld evidence relevant to the case -- including videos and comments on her YouTube channel that showed an inclination to provoke encounters with authorities, plus an online conversation specifically about the events surrounding her arrest.

Consequently, on Jan. 4, U.S. District Court Senior Judge Christine M. Arguello agreed Cronick had disobeyed court orders to hand over information to the defendants. She believed Cronick's "inexplicably nonsensical reasons strongly suggest purposeful obstruction."

The defendants' lawyers sought $18,000 in sanctions, claiming they spent 60 hours litigating the issue. In response, Cronick's attorneys, David Lane and Reid Allison, protested that there "has been no due process" and no "factual allegations counsel itself has engaged in misconduct."

Not so, Arguello responded.

"Ms. Cronick and her attorneys continue to rely on a fabricated excuse to justify disobeying a lawful discovery order," she wrote on Aug. 30. Further, "this Court already determined that Ms. Cronick -- by and through her counsel -- asserted excuses that are so clearly toothless, the only sensible explanation is bad faith on the part of the client-counsel duo."

Arguello outlined multiple occasions on which Cronick's attorneys responded to or were present for discussions of the non-disclosure and the possibility of sanctions.

After the defense accused Cronick of deleting her YouTube videos and certain online communications, U.S. Magistrate Judge Maritza Dominguez Braswell recommended imposing financial sanctions on Cronick and the plaintiff's attorneys. She pointed to her own order from April 2023 in which she expressed "concerns over obstruction," and was now "seriously troubled" by Cronick ignoring the directive to facilitate disclosure of evidence.

"Plaintiff does not reconcile her current position -- that the account belongs to her husband -- with her husband's contrary testimony, that the account belongs to Plaintiff," wrote Dominguez Braswell in October 2023. "More importantly though, Plaintiff's own deposition testimony demonstrates that Plaintiff does indeed have direct access to, and control over, the YouTube account in question."

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Arguello, in reviewing Dominguez Braswell's recommendation, agreed financial sanctions were warranted to pay the defendants' costs of pursuing the evidence.

In response, Cronick's attorneys protested that there was "no specific finding of wrongdoing" and that they were entitled to a hearing to present evidence. But Arguello was unmoved.

"The motion for sanctions straightforwardly and explicitly explained that Ms. Cronick's position was so thoroughly contradicted by the record that she must be lying to continue avoiding her discovery obligations," Arguello wrote in her latest order. Cronick's lawyer, in objecting to Dominguez Braswell's recommendation, "used that opportunity to reassert debunked excuses rather than defend himself."

Arguello reiterated that evidence showed the YouTube account was Cronick's. By disputing Cronick's ability to comply with the directive to disclose materials, her attorneys "are enabling and facilitating Ms. Cronick's ongoing disobedience of a lawful discovery order by giving life to an obvious lie."

At the same time, Arguello could not verify the accuracy of the defense's time spent litigating the issue because of numerous redactions in the documentation. She also could not discern whether Cronick or her lawyers were "more responsible for the deceptive representations" made in court.

Arguello scheduled a hearing for Sept. 26 to sort through the $18,000 in requested sanctions. She warned that Cronick's lawyers may be subject to further sanctions if they "continue to waste this Court's time relitigating an issue already decided."

Lane told Colorado Politics there was never a hearing to determine whether his client was lying, as Arguello believed, or was simply "mistaken in her answers, deceptive or acting under duress from a family member."

"Ms. Cronick is a Native American woman, and is indigent and has no ability to pay nor has she been given any due process to fight these allegations," Lane said. "This is a complete denial of due process of law and this, as well as any further unconstitutional orders by the court, will be appealed."

The case is Cronick v. Pryor et al.

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