Tag: sentencing
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Former D-12 teacher sentenced to prison on child sex assault charges
A former Cheyenne Mountain High School teacher convicted of sexually abusing a minor will serve 20 years to life in prison, an El Paso County judge ruled Wednesday. Marco Lara, 50, was arrested in December 2023 after Colorado Springs police launched an investigation into a report of sexual assault. His charges included sexual assault on…
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Length of prison sentence doesn’t match the request of victim’s family
One of the four teens arrested in connection with the 2023 murder of 32-year-old Gabriel Villanueba was sentenced to more than 30 years in prison on Tuesday. Santiago Dominguez, now 20, faced a handful of felonies related to the murder. After pleading not guilty in August 2024, Dominguez took his case before a jury. The…
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Woman sentenced to probation in 2023 hate crime ‘hoax’
DENVER • Deanna West, one of the three convicted in the hate crime “hoax” that shook the community of Colorado Springs during the 2023 mayoral runoff election, avoided jail time and was sentenced to probation in federal court last week. In November, the U.S. Attorney’s Office for Colorado announced that a federal grand jury indicted Derrick…
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Second suspect in 2022 Old Stage Road homicide sentenced to prison
Facebook Twitter WhatsApp SMS Email Print Copy article link Save The woman convicted of accessory charges related to the May 2022 murder of her cousin on Old Stage Road was sentenced to five years in state prison on Thursday. Laina Curtis, 40, turned herself in to law enforcement in October 2022 shortly after her boyfriend…
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Appeals court rules harsher sentence after appeal does not mean judge was ‘vindictive’
Colorado’s second-highest court ruled last week that a Jefferson County judge subjected a man to a harsher sentence following a successful appeal because the parole eligibility date was pushed back by multiple years, but that fact alone did not mean the judge acted “vindictively.” In 2015, the state Supreme Court noted that when a criminal…
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Pueblo West man sentenced to prison for sexual assault, sexual exploitation of a child
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Facebook Twitter WhatsApp SMS Email Print Copy article link Save A Pueblo West man was sentenced to 10 years to life after pleading guilty to sexual assault and sexual exploitation of a child spanning 12 years, according to a news release Tuesday from the Pueblo County Sheriff’s Office. William Plymell, 77, was arrested in July…
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Colorado Supreme Court tiptoes around prior edict forbidding prison plus probation
Five years ago, the Colorado Supreme Court interpreted state law to prohibit judges from imposing a sentence of prison plus probation in a single criminal case. But on Wednesday, the justices appeared to endorse the idea that judges could resentence affected defendants in a fashion that preserves the same — illegal — punishment. In its 2019 decision…
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Colorado justices skeptical of opening door to resentencing defendants under ‘3 strikes’ law
Members of the Colorado Supreme Court gave an icy reception on Tuesday to the idea that defendants convicted decades ago and serving lengthy sentences under the state’s “three strikes” law should have the opportunity to argue their punishments are grossly disproportionate under current standards. Although Colorado’s Habitual Criminal Act has undergone changes since its enactment…
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‘There’s a different weight that I feel’: Kato Crews speaks about first 6 months as federal district judge
When President Joe Biden appointed S. Kato Crews as a federal trial judge in January, Crews was no stranger to Colorado’s U.S. District Court. He had served as a magistrate judge on the same court for more than five years. On Wednesday, Crews told an audience of attorneys at the Alfred A. Arraj U.S. Courthouse…
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10th Circuit finds trial judge erred in sentencing duo who fraudulently sold body parts
A trial judge incorrectly calculated the sentences of a mother and daughter who pleaded guilty to fraudulently obtaining and selling body parts as part of an eight-year scheme, the federal appeals court based in Denver ruled on Tuesday. Megan Hess operated Sunset Mesa Funeral Directors in Montrose, catering to customers seeking cremation as well as medical-research…