Colorado AG regrets prisoner transfer

DENVER, May 25 (UPI) -- Colorado's attorney general says he doesn't remember approving the transfer to his state from Alaska of an FBI informant who killed four people in Colorado.

John Suthers said Monday he was not briefed about four-time felon Scott Kimball and doesn't recall signing the paperwork that brought Kimball to Colorado weeks before he killed the first of four victims, The Denver Post reported Tuesday.

"It's possible that at a briefing meeting they would have said, at the request of the FBI we've transferred a guy down here and we're working with him as an informant or something," Suthers said. "But I have no knowledge of that, and it appears I had no meetings about the case or anything, and I have no recollection of any involvement in the case."

Kimball, who had been jailed in Alaska for check fraud, was released in December 2002 and transferred to Colorado as part of a deal to act as an FBI informant against his cellmate. Four weeks later Kimball killed his first victim.

An investigation in 2006 led Kimball to plead guilty to two counts of second-degree murder, earning him a 70-year sentence. Suthers said the case is "one of the most tragic miscalculations that I've seen by the FBI and apparently condoned by the U.S. Attorney's Office."