“Iraq veteran Nic Gray talks to Westword about the night he can’t remember.”This week’s cover story relates the tale of how Nic Gray, an Iraq war veteran, got caught up in the criminal justice system and eventually landed in an innovative new program called the El Paso County veterans treatment…
Volunteer youth minister William “Bill” McLaughlin has been in Douglas County jail since mid-December on a $500,000 bail thanks to multiple charges of sexual assault on a child. But the Douglas County Sheriff’s Office continues to investigate the possibility of additional victims. According to the DCSO, McLaughlin has been associated…
Today, while law enforcement and bank honchos were meeting to discuss a recent upsurge in Denver-area bank robberies, a new bank was hit a little over a mile away. Score one for the robbers. In total, there were 208 robberies in Colorado and Wyoming in 2009, a 37 percent increase…
Update, 1:08 p.m.: Mohammed Zazi has now been officially accused in Brooklyn of conspiring to obstruct justice in Colorado and New York, prompting a scheduled appearance in U.S. District Court at 2 p.m. today. Click here for the details and read a U.S. Attorney’s Office release below our original item…
Colorado’s become Hoax Central lately thanks to the bizarre case involving a certain Balloon Boy. But the latest alleged pranksters are hardly Richard Heene clones. Rather, they’re members of the Denver Police Department. As first reported by Channel 4, two officers assigned to District 6, called the Parker Police Department…
Back in May 2008, a group of nine people, including Deangelo Calaway and Mitchell Walker, were upset by an incident that took place at Bash nightclub, not to mention the murder the day before of Michael Asberry, a 2007 Westword profile subject who talked with reporter Luke Turf about the…
On Friday, we told you about the nineteen locals caught up in Project Big Freeze, a nationwide sweep by U.S. Immigration and Customs Enforcement, aka ICE, that targeted “transnational gangs with ties to drug-trafficking organizations” in 83 cities, including Denver. That doesn’t mean, however, that all 447 alleged gang members…
The wife of notorious swindler and former fugitive Thomas Quintin is set to face charges stemming from reported schemes that date back as far back as 1990, when she and Quintin ran a diesel distribution company that failed to report fuel taxes in Colorado, Wyoming and Nebraska. Sandra Westphal, 68,…
Earlier this week, U.S. Immigration and Customs Enforcement, popularly known as ICE, announced the results of Project Big Freeze. ICE says the operation targeted “transnational gangs with ties to drug-trafficking organizations” in 83 cities, including Denver. A total of 447 alleged gang members were rounded up, with early reports saying…
You might say Steven Clay Romero sped off with our dishonor this week, dragging his freedom and dignity behind him, bloody and lifeless. How? By dragging a stranger’s dog to death behind his car…
On January 21, we told you about Joseph Trujillo, who reportedly left his infant alone for six or seven hours while he was boozing at a bar — and when he returned, the child was dead. In its initial release about Trujillo, the Jefferson County Sheriff’s Office explicitly stated that…
On The Simpsons, Mr. Burns frequently says, “Release the hounds!” But not having any vicious canines at his command earlier this week, Joshua Alger made do with the resources he had at hand — and released the children! Alger, 28, reportedly passed out drunk in the play area of a…
Eighteenth Judicial District Attorney Carol Chambers has had her ups and downs in her efforts to obtain the death penalty for two Limon inmates accused of killing a prison snitch. Almost two years ago, Lincoln County District Judge Stanley Brinkley removed her office from the prosecution of one of the…
Actress Halle Berry is reportedly planning to star in a film called Who Is Doris Payne?. But plenty of police officers already know the answer to that question — including the ones who just busted her for allegedly swiping a Burberry coat from a Saks Fifth Avenue in Costa Mesa,…
People in charge of a place called the Colorado Humane Society may not seem like logical candidates for Shmuck of the Week recognition. But back in December 2008, owners executive director Mary Warren, her husband, Robert Warren, and Mary Warren’s daughter, Stephenie Gardner, more than earned this honor after Attorney…
Swiping televisions used to be easier when they didn’t all used to be so friggin’ huge — especially if you’re as relatively small of stature as a suspected robber who was in the midst of trying to manhandle a 46-inch set in Boulder when the home’s owner confronted him earlier…
Two weeks ago, David Lane, attorney for Balloon Boy dad Richard Heene, griped that a $47,000-plus restitution charge for leading law-enforcement officials on a wild experimental-craft chase was way too high. That complaint has now been formalized: A motion challenging the amount was filed on Friday — and this morning,…
The world will have to wait a little bit longer to learn the fate of the Niwot urine-drinker. According to the Boulder Daily Camera, the retrial of Joseph Cardillo has been postponed because his new attorney needs time to catch up on the case. And what a case it is…
Some individuals accused of crimes wind up generating a significant amount of sympathy — but that’s unlikely to happen for Steven Clay Romero — because of what he’s accused of doing to a dog named Buddy. Late yesterday, a grand jury indicted Romero on one charge of animal cruelty. According…
Last Friday U.S. District Judge Robert Blackburn threw out a plea bargain deal for former Rose Medical Center employee Kristen Parker, who admitted infecting surgical patients with hepatitis C through needles contaminated by her own drug use. No real surprise here: Blackburn is even more of a control freak than…
It seems like only a couple of weeks ago that a passenger caused a flight to make an unscheduled landing in Colorado due to inexplicable behavior (including his insistence on shaving topless). That’s because it was only a couple of weeks ago. Now, a similar act: A thus-far unnamed man…
Thomas Quintin, 62, a Denver man with a long history of felony tax fraud, is facing new scrutiny after he walked away from his sentence at a half-way house and allegedly started a scheme investigators traced to caches totaling at least $1.3 million in government money last month. With 641…
