The Colorado Attorney General’s Office has opened a criminal investigation into Shannon McShane, the former parental evaluator who relinquished her state license to practice psychology amid allegations disclosed by The Gazette that she falsified her credentials and retaliated against a parent who reported her to regulators.

Parents interviewed by the criminal investigator with the Attorney General’s Office say the investigation is probing whether McShane accepted payments from parents beyond what judges had authorized her to accept, and whether those payments influenced her custody recommendations.

Records show the attorney general’s criminal investigative unit received a recommendation from a magistrate that McShane face potential criminal charges for perjury, forgery, criminal impersonation, false reporting, abuse of public records, soliciting unlawful compensation and bribery, among other potential alleged crimes.

McShane denied wrongdoing, as she has in the past.

She said that in a few isolated custody cases parents she was court-appointed to evaluate asked her for additional work, and she also had to travel out of state in those instances, which required additional payments.

“I did not go back to any parents to say I want more money,” she said.

“My work product was very good,” added McShane, who now lives in Texas. “Some people don’t like to, you know, read about themselves. It’s clear to me I probably need to reach out to some of these people in Colorado and find out what’s happening so I can resolve stuff.”

The criminal investigation by the Attorney General’s Office follows investigative reports into Colorado’s parenting evaluation industry by The Gazette. Evaluators and their custody recommendations, which often cost parents tens of thousands of dollars, can hold tremendous sway with judges in custody cases.

The Gazette’s investigation found state and judicial officials have been slow to act against evaluators, including McShane, whose court-appointed custody recommendations have generated complaints of bias and accusations that children have been put in peril through inaccurate reports recommending custody go to abusive parents.

Court records show that Magistrate Matthew Bradley, who presided over court cases in six counties in northeast Colorado, recommended potential criminal charges regarding McShane to the 13th Judicial District Attorney’s office on July 27. That criminal referral was then forwarded to the Colorado Attorney General’s Office Special Prosecutions Unit, which now is conducting a wide-ranging criminal probe, according to interviews with potential witnesses and court documents.

The magistrate’s criminal referral was made the same day The Gazette published an investigative report into how McShane’s disputed parenting recommendations had sent into turmoil more than 20 custody cases, including one that Bradley had presided over.

Bradley in November 2022 found McShane’s custody recommendation that two boys and one girl, then ages 12, 9 and 10, be relocated from Colorado to live with their mother in California so flawed and biased that he barred her from working again in his judicial district.

The magistrate noted in his ruling that McShane erroneously fixated on whether a father’s nickname of “Sleepy Melo” meant he was a gang member when the mother was the one involved in a violent hostage situation who was living with a felon.

Bradley in his criminal referral stated: “I believe Shannon McShane has potentially committed perjury, criminal impersonation, false reporting, abuse of public records, soliciting unlawful compensation, attempt to influence a public servant, official oppression, official misconduct and bribery.”

An affidavit from Shawna Gilbert, an investigator for the Attorney General’s Office leading the criminal probe, asked a judge to compel production of records related to McShane. That affidavit, filed in Denver District Court, detailed Bradley’s criminal referral as well as another criminal referral the Attorney General’s Office received in July from an investigator with the 21st Judicial District Attorney’s Office in Mesa County.

The criminal referral from the investigator in Mesa County alleged McShane “was suspected of committing a series of forgeries and of practicing medicine without a license” and of using “falsely obtained credentials” to accept court appointments for custody recommendations and to testify in court cases, according to Gilbert’s affidavit.

Gilbert, who declined comment, said in the affidavit that she believed probable cause existed to show that McShane committed the crime of attempt to influence a public servant, a felony.

Gilbert sought an order from a judge requiring the Colorado Department of Regulatory Agencies to produce for the attorney general’s investigation records related to McShane’s licensing to practice psychology and addiction counseling in Colorado. A judge ordered the regulatory agency to produce for Gilbert all licensing records, as well as complaints it had received regarding McShane and any investigative reports the agency had conducted on McShane.

McShane on July 20 surrendered her state licenses required to work in Colorado as a psychologist and an addiction counselor to resolve an investigation by the Department of Regulatory Agencies into whether she had falsified her credentials. Months earlier, in March, the Colorado State Court Administrator’s Office had barred McShane from receiving court appointments to make custody recommendations.

DORA and the state court administrator’s office acted after a father, Chad Kullhem, filed complaints that eventually caused a DORA investigator to conclude McShane had falsely claimed she had a doctoral degree from the University of Hertfordshire in England to obtain her state psychology license in 2020.

Kullhem provided emails to the investigator for DORA showing that McShane had been harshly critical of his parenting after he disclosed in his custody case that he had discovered that she did not actually have a doctoral degree. The investigator also concluded McShane had impersonated state regulators and a U.S. embassy employee to avoid discovery of her alleged fake credentials, records

show.

In emails to lawyers in Kullhem’s custody case, McShane said Kullhem was an unfit father and said that he was worse than a murderer whom she said she had treated who had put his enemies through a woodchipper.

The judge in Kullhem’s case eventually ordered McShane to repay Kullhem the $7,500 he paid for her parenting evaluation and ordered the lawyers to refrain from using her parenting evaluation report in the custody case.

McShane resigned in June from her position as a psychologist at the state hospital in Pueblo for the criminally insane and has relocated to Texas, where she became licensed in March as a social worker and a psychologist. In emails to other parenting evaluators, she has said she plans to renew her work as a parenting evaluator in Texas courts.

McShane’s relocation to Texas returns her to a state where authorities in 2018 had revoked her real estate license and fined her $42,000 after she was accused of pocketing rental money from properties that she was managing instead of forwarding the rent to property owners.

Parents who have talked to the Colorado Attorney General’s Office investigator said that investigator has asked for contract documents related to McShane’s payment arrangements and any instances in which McShane sought additional compensation beyond what a judge ordered parents to pay.

At least two parents in interviews have said McShane asked them for additional payments during her parenting evaluations that they refused to make.