Denver- A University of Colorado recruiting assistant is being accused of using a local escort agency, particularly its owner to help “recruit” candidates to the school’s football program. Former escort service operator Pasha Cowan, a big woman, was among three witnesses who appeared Friday in Denver before a state grand jury probing allegations of criminal misconduct in football recruiting practices at the university.

Cowan, a really big woman, arrived with her lawyer, Mark Johnson. She testified for about an hour.

The final witness of the day, a woman in a gray suit, left the grand jury room about 11:30 a.m hiding her face in her lawyer’s jacket, which was draped over her head.

Prosecutors from several entities, including the Boulder and Adams county district attorney’s offices, the attorney general’s office and Gov. Bill Owens’ chief counsel, attended the 2 1/2-hour proceeding.

Neither Johnson nor Cowan would comment after her appearance before the grand jury. Don Colaizzi, bailiff for the grand jury, said the grand jury will meet again on June 11.

A state grand jury will hear more testimony today in connection with the University of Colorado sex-for-recruits scandal.

Attorney General Ken Salazar’s task force investigating CU’s recruiting practices is scheduled to bring witnesses before the grand jury in Denver, sources said.

Pasha Cowan, a really, really big woman, who said her former escort service had been paid thousands of dollars by a CU athletic department employee to have sex with young men at a Broomfield hotel, was among the first witnesses to testify in the widening probe.

Sources have said that a wider state task force is focusing on the source of money used to hire strippers for CU recruiting parties and to pay prostitutes.

In a related development, former CU recruiting assistant Nathan Maxcey, accused by Cowan and two other women of paying them at least $2,000 cash for the sexual liaisons, reiterated to The Denver Post last week that he arranged sex only for himself.

“My story has never changed; I never, ever set up recruits with strippers or escorts,” Maxcey said in a telephone interview. “If I needed to take a lie-detector test every day for the rest of the year, it wouldn’t bother me in the slightest.”

Maxcey, 28, said he expects to be deposed by investigators with the special prosecutor in the next few weeks and plans to tell them the same. He said he has spoken with investigators “a couple of times” on the telephone and is preparing for a face-to-face sworn interview.

Maxcey said he has not yet been called to appear before the grand jury. But he would be willing if asked, he said.

“I’ve spoken with my own counsel, expecting (investigators) to visit here,” Maxcey said about the task force.

Salazar was appointed as a special prosecutor by Gov. Bill Owens to investigate criminal aspects of the CU sex-for-recruits scandal. Salazar created the task force, whose members have included investigators and prosecutors from 12 agencies.

The task force decided last week not to charge anyone involved in nine alleged rapes involving CU football players or recruits dating to 1997.

A report made public Tuesday by a CU commission investigating football recruiting practices said Maxcey’s conduct during his tenure there – June 2002 through July 2003 – raised “numerous questions,” particularly information from lawyers representing three of the women Maxcey allegedly paid.

The women, through their lawyers, claimed Maxcey doled out at least $2,000 over a 45-day period to provide sex for young men at the Omni Hotel, where CU football recruits have stayed during their visits, the report said.

It is unclear whether the young men were CU athletes or recruits.

One of the women whose lawyers gave the commission information about Maxcey is Cowan, who occasionally handled clients’ sexual liaisons herself, according to police reports.

One of those liaisons was with Maxcey, but that’s as far as it ever got, the former CU employee said. Allegations that he arranged for recruits to have sex are untrue, Maxcey said.

“If I was Pasha, I’d get as many people as possible to back me up,” he said, questioning Cowan’s credibility.

In February, Maxcey’s former boss, David Hansburg, CU’s director of football operations, said Cowan called asking for a job while disclosing Maxcey’s sexual liaisons. But Hansburg quoted Cowan as saying, “I’m not trying to blackmail you.”

Cowan has been arrested and convicted of a variety of charges – none of them related to prostitution – including making a false statement to a police officer, according to the Colorado Bureau of Investigation and court records.

Maxcey has admitted to using his CU-issued cellphone to make more than a dozen calls to Cowan and scores of calls to a chat line – but, again, only for himself, he said. University auditors disclosed recently that Maxcey was ordered to stop calling the chat line in February 2003 and was told in July of that year to repay more than $1,190 for the calls.

Maxcey’s job at CU involved arranging recruit trips, shuttling recruits to the Omni Hotel, checking that each obeyed curfews and helping oversee the Ambassador program of student escorts.