This morning, prominent Thornton restaurant owner Dan Tang pled guilty to one count of money laundering for his role in what investigators labeled the "Dan Tang Drug Trafficking Organization."
When authorities took down the drug ring in February 2008, they came away with 24,000 marijuana plants growing in 25 suburban homes, along with $3 million in cash and more than $1 million of growing equipment.
Operation Fortune Cookie was the largest indoor marijuana bust in state history -- but behind the scenes, the investigation began to fall apart soon after the arrests. A tip-off letter had alerted the drug ring about the investigation, and afterward, the DEA launched a rancorous internal investigation into the North Metro Task Force, the police agency that started the case, looking for the leak. The results of the lengthy inquiry were never released, but in the year following the bust, half of the eighteen-member task force left or were reassigned.
Deputy Chief Tim Carlson and Senior Police Officer Sean Chandler were both shot in the melee.
The explosion of violence that took place in Westminster yesterday harks back to the days when the law rode horses and gunmen died young 'n' purty.
As the Westminster Police Department tells it, a thus-far-unidentified man and woman stuck up the First Bank on 120th Avenue, then tried to make their getaway in a Subaru -- a vehicle slightly more impressive than the bicycle a bank robber in Lakewood pedaled away on following a crime earlier this week, but only just. When cops spotted the Subaru at a nearby grocery store, shots were fired -- plenty of them. The Bonnie-and-Clyde wannabes died in the subsequent rain of lead, while Officer Sean Chandler and Deputy Chief Tim Carlson were shot, sustaining non-life-threatening injuries.
James C. Bird has at least temporarily flown the coop.
It's a sad truth that sexual abuse and assault sometimes goes unreported for years. That's reportedly the case with 62-year-old James C. Bird -- and while there are currently four counts of sexual assault on a child pending against him, the Jefferson County Sheriff's Office thinks there could be more on the way. Maybe a lot more.
According to JCSO public-information officer Jacki Kelly, Bird "befriended" brothers between the ages of 14 and 17 in 2004 after connecting with them through a church in Aurora. Cut to September, "when one of the boys confided to his mother that he'd been abusing them," Kelly says.
Lt. Jerry Schiager says claims that medical marijuana hasn't increased crime aren't quite accurate.
Among those speaking about medical marijuana at last night's Fort Collins City Council meeting was Fort Collins Police Department Lt. Jerry Schiager, commander of the Northern Colorado Drug Task Force. In his remarks, he used a handful of grabby stats to contradict claims by weed advocates that the proliferation of medical marijuana doesn't cause an increase in crime.
"There have been at least five armed robberies, seven burglaries and one kidnapping" related to marijuana in the Fort Collins area over the past year and a half or so, Schiager says. "And those are only the ones we know about."
Channel 7 led its newscast last night with a John Elway story -- not exactly a unique occurrence. Number 7 probably didn't enjoy it much, however, since it focused on Speed of Wealth LLC, an organization that paid Big John to appear at assorted events -- and which the Securities and Exchange Committee accuses of being a $30 million Ponzi scheme.
No comments from Elway yet in the report linked above or similar ones offered by Channel 4 or the Denver Post. But one look at numerous Speed of Wealth videos starring Wayde McKelvy, who's accused of being behind the scheme (along with his wife, Donna), and the average person's bullshit detector will likely go off the charts.
The one above, which continues to linger on the SpeedOfWealth.com website, tries to lure saps to seminars by offering (I'm not making this up) home sites in Eastern Tennessee allegedly worth $25,000 -- and they're going to appreciate in value, you can bet! Look below for more, including the humorously titled (unless you lost a ton of cash) "Your Wealth Building IQ Sucks," and decide if Elway should have taken one look at this guy and run the other way.
If only Dion Morgan had a set of wheels like these, he might've made it...
I thought everyone had seen Hollywood movies in which an armed criminal brazenly sticks up a bank, then races his bags of cash outside and hops into a souped-up vehicle capable of outrunning any cop car that dares to follow. But apparently Dion K. Morgan was movie-deprived, because after allegedly knocking over Liberty Savings Bank, at 7575 W. Jewell Avenue, he tried to get away on... a bicycle.
Morgan made it about a mile (maybe) before being grabbed by members of the Lakewood Police Department near the intersection of Florida Avenue and Carr Street. He's expected to be charged with armed robbery -- and extreme environmental friendliness! Look below for more details from the LPD.
The movies teach us that there are good guys and bad guys -- and then there are bad guys named Angel, as in The Good, the Bad and the Ugly. But two new books by former Colorado prisoners trace wildly divergent paths through the thickets of crime and punishment -- one an ever-downward spiral of dope and betrayal, the other a tale of redemption and exhortation.
The more interesting book, by far, is the downer. Vato Maldito: My Life of Crime, by John "Bubbles" Gallegos (Enlightened Pyramid Publications), is a slim, unadorned account of tough-guy Gallegos careening from the streets to prison and back again, battling addiction and treacherous stick-up partners, jailhouse snitches and his own demons.
Mitch Morrissey hopes all you at-large criminals have siblings who've been busted.
Denver District Attorney Mitch Morrissey is psyched. For the past several years, he's been working with colleagues in the Denver Police Department's crime lab, among others, to prove the efficacy of a method able to connect DNA not in law-enforcement databases to samples from family members of the scofflaw that are. And the experiment just paid off with the arrest and conviction of one Luis Jaimes-Tinajero, 21.
Jaimes-Tinajero didn't exactly commit the crime of the century: He broke into a couple of cars, cutting himself in the process -- and the blood he spilled scored a family match, leading to his arrest. But Morrissey is more interested in the potential for the technology than the fact that Jaimes-Tinajero received a sentence of two years probation in September. "This tool could be used to help us solve a serial murder case, or find a serial sex offender loose in the community, where you have a DNA profile that doesn't match anybody in the database."
Does the technology raise privacy concerns? Not in Morrissey's view.
Whether or not Timothy P. Gonzales is a Talking Heads fan, the "Once in a Lifetime" lyric "This is not my beautiful house!" should have gone through his head last week -- at just about the moment the man whose home he'd basically moved into fired a warning shot in his general direction.
According to the Golden Police Department, Gonzales made himself comfy at a house for sale on the 1200 block of Mesa Court. He parked his car (a nice one) in the garage, put food in the refrigerator, did his laundry and, of course, loaded up a work bench with ingredients used in making meth. Hell, he even posed as the home's owner when real estate agents arrived to show clients the property.
If only the actual owner hadn't turned up a short time later, packing heat. The cops followed, finding Gonzales clad only in the homeowner's boxer shorts. Which probably gave them a good look at Timothy P's giant cojones.
Check out pics of Gonzales and the rest of the details below. Same as it ever was...
Instead, the process was orderly and low key, unlike pretty much everything else in this story -- and within the past hour, the Heenes entered guilty pleas as outlined by Lane yesterday. No sentencing yet, and still no mention of restitution for the dough law enforcement spent chasing down a silver balloon that didn't actually contain young Falcon Heene. But according to the Fort Collins Coloradoan, Judge Stephen Schapanski granted Richard's request to be allowed to travel to New York and California to seek work.
Well, if besmirched Illinois governor Rod Blagojevich can get hired to appear on a reality-TV show, why not this particular Dick?
Neither Norman Bates nor his mother matches the cops' descriptions.
Yesterday morning, a woman was stabbed at an RTD bus stop near the intersection of West Colfax Avenue and Winona Street -- and as the Denver Police Department notes, this isn't exactly the first time something like this has happened.
Three other stabbing incidents took place along the West Colfax corridor in April and May, with one of them occurring at a bus stop that sounds very much like the one above.
The description in the trio of early attacks isn't identical to the one from yesterday -- an African-American male of medium build and short hair in the springtime, a stocky Hispanic or light-skinned African American male with long, curly hair more recently. Then again, the DPD doesn't appear to be ruling out the possibility that a serial stabber has returned. Connect the dots using the information below:
Richard Heene during the infamous Today Show appearance when son Falcon puked for the nation.
That e-mail blast attorney David Lane mentioned around this time yesterday came through at 12:51 a.m. today. In it, Lane confirms that Richard Heene and his wife Mayumi will enter guilty pleas tomorrow morning regarding the runaway-balloon hoax involving their young son, Falcon.
Mayumi will cop to False Reporting to Authorities, a misdemeanor, while Richard will plead to Attempting to Influence a Public Servant. Both will receive probationary sentences.
The document says this course was taken to avoid the possibility that Mayumi, a Japanese citizen, would be deported. For that strategy, Lane takes one more shot at authorities who he'd already accused of a crime for talking about a child-abuse investigation.
Darren Garcia reportedly had a three-letter secret he didn't share with his customers.
It's my understanding, reached via careful research conducted in the name of journalism, that some prostitutes have specialties beyond the old in-n-out. But if the Denver District Attorney's Office is correct, the extra offered by Darren Garcia, 29, probably wasn't appreciated as much as, say, the Dutch Lobster, which sounds simultaneously agonizing and delicious. He's been charged with taking part in acts of prostitution despite knowing that he's HIV-positive.
Thanks but no thanks, Mr. Garcia. I think I'll try the Beached Dolphin instead. Get the rest of the lowdown below:
Mark Mathias may have watched "Taxi Driver" a few dozen times too many.
Talk about burying the lead. A just-issued release from the Denver District Attorney's Office is entitled "Man Charged With Sexual Assault on a Child" -- and indeed, Mark Mathias, 48, has indeed been formally accused of this crime. But even more shockingly (and disgustingly), he allegedly arranged to have sex over nine months with the fourteen-year-old daughter of a woman he paid for the privilege.
Kinda puts all those crappy things your mom made you do in perspective, doesn't it?
The mother in question hasn't been named yet, but she's reportedly behind bars, as is Mathias. I'm okay with that -- and presumably the woman's daughter is, too. Get the rest of the details below:
Most articles about the arrest of Richard "Rossi" Moreau, who's been accused of murder in a Saturday night shooting in Vail that left one person dead and three injured, have noted how rare such incidents have been in the ski community. Reference this Vail Daily report, which quotes officials who say they can only recall "two homicides that have occurred in Vail in its 47-year history, both in the late '70s or early '80s." But another notable slaying took place there in 1975 -- one which made a 1999 Denver Post list citing Colorado's crimes of the century.
Her name was Julie Cunningham, and she worked at a Vail ski shop. Ted Bundy, one of the era's most heinous and notorious serial killers, confessed to having murdered Cunningham shortly before his execution. As documented in former Westword staffer Steve Jackson's book No Stone Unturned, her body was never recovered.
You can touch this kind of hammer -- with your skull.
Remember that old saying about how you shouldn't bring a knife to a gunfight? Well, apparently bringing a hammer to a gunfight works out better -- or at least it did on Saturday night in Wellington.
A man reportedly showed up at 8410 N. Third Street with a couple of uninvited guests -- a handgun and a shotgun. Tempers soon flared among the seven-to-ten people in attendance, and while a Larimer County Sheriff's Department rep says the man got off a couple of shots, the main damage done was to his cranium, after someone whacked it with a hammer, sending Mr. Armed But Not as Dangerous as You'd Think to an area hospital. Guess he didn't realize it was hammer time.
Sure it would suck to work here. But it wouldn't stab-yourself suck.
We've all been there: Stuck in a job we hate, dreading showing up for even another day. There are ways to grin and bear it, but sometimes that isn't enough. Sometimes you know just showing up will break you, and you've gotta stay away for a day.
There are plenty of decent ways to pull that off. Stabbing yourself is not one of them.
But the three mural-like graffiti "pieces" that prompted a jury to convict 27-year-old Timothy Barajas of seven misdemeanor counts of criminal mischief and trespassing hardly represents the full body of work generally attributed to KOZE. As the below pictures and videos show, the man behind those four letters isn't your average fourteen-year-old tagger running amok with a broad-tip Sharpie.
"I've alphabetized the drama section for the last time."
At about 6:30 p.m. on Monday night, Aaron Siebers reported that he'd been stabbed in Edgewater by "three skinheads or Hispanic males dressed in black" who tried to rob him. Trouble is, a surveillance video from a business where this alleged attack supposedly took place didn't show anything like what Siebers described. So the cops interviewed him again -- and this time, he reportedly admitted that he stabbed himself rather than go to work at a Sheridan Boulevard Blockbuster.
An insanity defense wouldn't seem like the best way to go for Siebers when fighting the false-reporting charge he faces, since everyone with a job at Blockbuster probably dreams of stabbing himself on occasion, making it a totally logical impulse. Then again, maybe Siebers could argue that a sane man would have turned a blade on himself a lot sooner than he did. Either way, we're pulling for him. We've all been there, Aaron!
"Sorry, officer. I didn't realize it was your Glock..."
There are pros and cons to burglarizing a police officer, as someone did in Northglenn on Friday; a loaded Glock 26 handgun and a friend's 2005 PT Cruiser were among the items swiped. On the positive side, you gain legendary status among your fellow felons: "Robbed a cop? Stole his gun? You're a BAMF!" But there are negatives, too -- like, for instance, there's no chance this case will get lost in the shuffle and quickly forgotten. The police will keep looking and looking and looking long after you sold the booty for whatever you could get and spent it on meth. Exhibit A: The Northglenn Police's release, on view below:
Some of the revelers at the Club Posh grand opening in February -- none of whom were injured in the drinking of this beverage.
Club Posh, at 4040 E. Evans, debuted on February 20, and judging by our slideshow from opening night, a good time was had by all. But the fun was less universal during the early hours of November 1, when Halloween revelry ended with three shooting victims: one found by Denver Police Department representatives right away, another discovered a short time later, and a third who turned up at Rose Medical Center. Also part of the story: a shooting at an area McDonalds and a car chase that may or may not have had anything to do with all the bullets flying around. Obviously, there are a lot more questions to be answered -- but look below for what the DPD is saying thus far, albeit with references to the wrong date (just because there was a time change doesn't mean November 1 switches back to October 31):
Cesar Corzo's troubling past didn't stop Rite of Passage from hiring him.
Reason number 13,456 not to do something dumb and end up in jail: Former social worker Cesar Corzo.
Corzo, you'll recall -- unless you've blocked it out, for which we couldn't blame you -- is the former Arapahoe County corrections worker accused of being a giant scumbag. As Alan Prendergast reported last week, Corzo is accused of: "bringing illegal drugs into the facility and giving them to his clients; presenting slide shows involving pornographic images during group counseling sessions; bringing in a former female client and allowing his clients to have sex with her; and instituting an 'anti-snitch policy,' whereby any of his clients who divulge what occurs during counseling sessions to outside parties will be (and were) beaten."
You don't have to be Sherlock Holmes to track these prints...
Congratulations, Patrick Moat, Ryan Spear and Brian Coshnitzke. You've just put your marks in the History of Stupid Criminals -- marks shaped like the footprints in the snow police were able to follow to your door.
Greenwood Village Police Lieutenant Randy Corbitt tells the story, which gets dumber, and funnier, each step of the way.
Not a photo of the actual impersonation suspect (we're pretty sure).
How convincing a cop was a 24-year-old Colorado Springs man currently being held on felony police-impersonation charges? Well, the vehicle he used was a gray 1995 Cadillac sedan, the sort of car preferred by eighty-year-old retirees or ride-pimpers getting ready for Cinco de Mayo, not the police. Instead of a red-and-blue bubble light mounted on top of the vehicle, he opted for a white strobe light in the front window and a flashing white-and-yellow strobe in back. (Maybe the Caddy used to be a mobile disco...) A Colorado State Patrol release describes his uniform as featuring "security guard patches and a gold security badge with the word 'Chief' printed at the top." And he capped off this ensemble with handcuffs and a black toy pistol.
Even Paul Blart, mall cop, could have seen through this disguise, which sounds like a Halloween costume less believable than any of those sexy-cop outfits on sale at Target. But Trooper David Hall isn't laughing.
"Don't we search you people for weapons before we let you in here?"
UPDATED, October 29, 1:45 p.m.: The participants in this bloody no-love triangle have been named, and we've got a photo of the stabber, below the original item:
Not all mash-ups work: Even Glee-master Will Schuester couldn't figure out how to meld "I Could Have Danced All Night" from My Fair Lady with Sisqó's "Thong Song." But is it possible to combine the relationship craziness of The Jerry Springer Show with the blade-wielding action of prime Quentin Tarantino? Damn straight, as was proven outside the Arapahoe County District Courthouse yesterday.
Here's what we know so far, courtesy of the Arapahoe County Sheriff's Office: A husband and wife showed up at the courthouse for a divorce hearing -- but instead of appearing solo, the wife brought her boyfriend. Shockingly enough, hubby and boy toy soon got into an argument that didn't end until the missus' new squeeze pulled out a knife and stabbed her old bedmate (who's expected to fully recover). Then Bonnie and her Clyde fled, evading authorities for... well, for a few minutes at least, from what it sounds like.
Sounds like irreconcilable differences to us. Read the facts to date below:
A reminder, Jennifer Carter: Tape is for wrapping packages, not students.
Palmer Elementary secretary Jennifer Carter has been formally charged with two misdemeanors in relation to an incident last week, when she allegedly dealt with a misbehaving six-year-old student by taping his hands together and his mouth shut.
Startling stuff, but hardly unique. Indeed, accounts of alleged abuse or mistreatment of students at the hands of school employees are becoming more common with each passing day. Here are five reports of conduct unbecoming of anyone, many but not all of them involving students with special needs:
Last December, Catholic-school teacher Balazs Toth drove to a West Colfax McDonalds in the hopes of doing nasty things with a youngster he'd lured there using the Internet. Instead, he hooked up with members of the Denver Police Department, who promptly busted him -- and in June, he was sentenced to ninety days in jail and five years probation for a criminal attempt to commit sexual assault on a child. And as a bonus, tomorrow at 10:30 a.m., the DPD will publicly crush the car Toth used on the day in question.
According to Technician Loretta Beauvais, a DPD spokeswoman, the rationale for the crushing is that "the vehicle was involved in the crime. If our public-nuisance abatement unit classifies the vehicle that way, and if it was used to commit, conduct or facilitate sex assault or attempted sex assault, that's going to result in the crushing of his vehicle."
If only his testicles were in the glove compartment. Look below to learn where and when Toth's car will get the squeeze.
Miguel Angel Caro-Quintero once sold weed by the ton. Yes, the ton.
Miguel Angel Caro-Quintero, 46, who entered a guilty plea Friday in regard to charges against him in Colorado and Arizona, isn't just any drug peddler. As one of the reputed leaders of Mexico's Sonora cartel, he became the stuff of legend -- and given that he's now admitted to trafficking over 100 tons of marijuana valued at more than $100 million during the second half of the '80s, the tales don't appear to have been exaggerated much.
Rite of Passage, where youth were "counseled" by Cesar Corzo.
The Colorado Department of Regulatory Agencies looks into all sorts of bad behavior in numerous trades and professions. Not many DORA complaints can compete, though, with the staggering range of allegations found in the recent paperwork suspending the counseling and social work licenses of Cesar Corzo, 48, a former employee of a youth correctional facility who's facing criminal charges in Arapahoe County involving drugs, porn, contributing to the delinquency of a minor and "conspiracy to commit sexual conduct in penal institutions."
According to DORA, "the underlying [criminal] allegations include, but are not limited to, bringing illegal drugs into the facility and giving them to his clients; presenting slide shows involving pornographic images during group counseling sessions; bringing in a former female client and allowing his clients to have sex with her; and instituting an 'anti-snitch policy,' whereby any of his clients who divulge what occurs during counseling sessions to outside parties will be (and were) beaten."
Those sound like some intense counseling sessions. But wait. There's more.
This, my friends, is what three pounds of meth looks like.
I'm a proud native of the Western Slope, and when I grew up in Grand Junction, the main substance we had to worry about was uranium. Those were the days. Now, reports about meth busts are the opposite of unusual -- although few can compare to the feds' roundup of alleged drug thugs operating as the La Familia cartel. Six suspects out of eleven indicted back in July have now been arrested, with three more joining them in lockdown earlier this week. Additionally, agents have gathered more than $300,000 in cash, eight kilos of cocaine and three pounds of methamphetamine -- enough to keep fictional teacher-turned-meth-manufacturer Walter White of Breaking Bad in business at least until the cancer kills him.
Look below for more photos (of drugs and dollars), as well as the Justice Department's account.
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