A woman who allegedly lied about having a doctorate in psychology and used false credentials to testify in court on child custody cases was indicted by a state grand jury on 15 criminal counts.
Shannon McShane, 57, is facing eight counts of attempt to influence a public servant, five counts of forgery, one count of perjury and one count of retaliation against a victim or witness. The indictment against McShane was filed on Aug. 29 in Denver District Court by Colorado Attorney General Phil Weiser. She is in custody at the Denver Downtown Detention Center.
McShane, a resident of El Paso County, is accused of claiming to have a PhD in psychology from the University of Hertfordshire in the United Kingdom and used that phony degree to obtain a license from the Colorado Department of Regulatory Agencies as a licensed psychologist, certified addiction counselor and licensed addiction counselor.
McShane then obtained several positions in Colorado courts and state agencies, including the Department of Corrections and the Colorado Mental Health Institute in Pueblo, the indictment stated. She also used those licenses to work as a child family investigator and parental responsibilities evaluator in family court throughout Colorado. Through those positions, she provided findings and recommendations about parenting time and other family matters to judges and magistrates.
She signed court documents with several acronyms, including PhD, and testified under oath that she had a doctoral degree, the indictment said.
Parents involved in domestic relations cases in Colorado courts began complaining about her to the Department of Regulatory Affairs, and the attorney general’s office received two complaints from court officials in Mesa County and the 13th Judicial District, which covers seven counties in northeast Colorado.
The indictment included a table of some of the counties, including Adams, Arapahoe, Boulder and Denver counties, where McShane allegedly filed false mandatory disclosures in court cases.
In one incident described in the indictment, a father complained about McShane’s appointment as a child family investigator in his custody case. He became suspicious of her after his first interview and began investigating her background, the indictment stated. He figured out that she could not have been a PhD student in 2017 in the United Kingdom because she also was in Texas studying for a master’s degree that year. He later received email confirmation from an administrator at the University of Hertfordshire that there was no record of McShane as a student.
The father filed an anonymous complaint because he feared retaliation in his court case. Still, McShane allegedly called his employer and accused the father of cyberstalking her because she did not rule 100% in his favor in a custody evaluation, the indictment said.
In a news release, Weiser was quoted as saying, “Defrauding the state of Colorado and engaging in unlicensed practice as a psychologist in a manner that impacts our justice system is a grave breach of public trust,” said Weiser. “In this case, we are seeking to hold Shannon McShane accountable for her alleged conduct and to send a message that this behavior is intolerable.”
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