Crime

Undocumented father who sought sanctuary in Denver church detained by ICE at work

CENTENNIAL, Colo. – An undocumented man who was the first in Colorado to seek sanctuary from deportation when he did so in 2015 was detained at work Wednesday by U.S. Immigrations and Customs Enforcement agents.

It was quite the change of course for Arturo Hernandez-Garcia, who was told in 2015 after nine months of being in sanctuary at Denver’s First Unitarian Church that he was not a priority for deportation.

Hernandez-Garcia, a 44-year-old Mexican native, returned to his normal life in Colorado until he was again picked up Wednesday.

Hernandez-Garcia first came to the U.S. through El Paso, Texas in January 2003 on a six-month work visa, according to ICE, but outstayed his visa. He was first targeted for deportation after his 2010 arrest on an assault charge for a fight at work – a charge that was later dropped.

In October 2012, a federal immigration judge granted a 60-day voluntary departure request, but those turned into final deportation orders in December 2012, when he failed to voluntarily remove himself from the U.S., according to ICE.

In 2014, an appeal of his deportation was dismissed, but the Board of Immigration Appeals extended his voluntary departure date through Aprill 2014. However, when he didn’t leave, a final order of removal became active again, according to ICE. He had applications for stays of removal denied in May 2014 and March 2015, according to ICE.

He will now be held until his removal, according to ICE spokesman Carl Rusnok.

Hernandez-Garcia was one of 10 people living in sanctuary across the country at the time – something that has become more common under the Trump administration’s increased focus on deporting undocumented immigrants, since churches are generally respected by immigration agents as off-limits.

Hernandez has a wife and two daughters – one of whom was born in the U.S., which generally kept him safe under the Obama administration’s directive that protected undocumented parents of citizen children.

The First Unitarian Church has also been a sanctuary haven for Jeanette Vizguerra, a Mexican national who took sanctuary at the church earlier this year when she was scheduled to be deported. Vizguerra was named as one of TIME Magazine’s 100 most influential people of the year last week, and is one of at least two women in the Denver area currently in sanctuary.

In a Facebook video she posted Wednesday, she pleaded for Hernandez-Garcia’s release.

“We need for the community to get active, for the community to do something, and we need to join in this campaign. Today, we are all Arturo,” she said.

Hernandez-Garcia’s detainment comes less than a week after an Aurora mother of four was deported and removed from the country without her children.

MORE | Learn about the undocumented mother of 4 who ICE agents detained, deported from Colorado. 


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Third ‘Scream Mask Bandit’ sentenced to 1,888 years for bank robbery, crime spree

GOLDEN, Colo. – One of the so-called “Scream Mask Bandits” convicted last year of a day-long crime spree that involved a bank robbery and the shooting of several random bystanders was sentenced Tuesday to 1,888 years in prison.

Tyrone Javonne Richardson, 32, received the sentence Tuesday in the 1st Judicial District Court in Jefferson County. The lengthy sentence came in part because of Richardson’s already-long prior rap sheet, which included three prior felony convictions.

Richardson, along with Miguel Sanders and Myloh Mason, were found guilty in November of an array of felonies and other charges that included attempted murder, assault, kidnapping, aggravated robbery, burglary and aggravated vehicle theft.

Richardson originally faced 37 total charges and was convicted of most.

Richardson and the two others robbed a bank in Lakewood in November 2015, escaping with at least $50,000 and leaving the bank employees and customers locked in the vault.

The three crashed a getaway car, broke into a 65-year-old man’s home, and shot him four times before stealing his van and taking off again. The man survived the shooting.

Police chased the men until they crashed near Sheridan High School, after which the trio tried to carjack a woman, shooting her and beating up her mother in the process.

But they couldn’t get the car started and ran off on foot.

Police arrested Sanders after he threatened a bus driver, but was caught hiding under the bus.

Richardson was eventually caught six days after the incident, and Mason became one of the FBI’s 10 most-wanted fugitives until his capture in January 2016.

Mason was sentenced in March to more than 1,200 years in prison, which Sanders received a 371-year sentence in December.


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Undocumented mother of 4 from Aurora has been deported from US by ICE agents

AURORA, Colo. – An undocumented mother of four who has spent much of the past two decades in Aurora has been deported and removed from the country by U.S. Immigration and Customs Enforcement.

The lawyer for Maria de Jesus Jimenez-Sanchez confirmed to Denver7 Tuesday that she was deported on April 18 – five days after she was originally detained in Centennial by ICE agents.

Her lawyer, Lakewood attorney Jennifer Kain-Rios, says that Jimenez-Sanchez is the mother to four children, including a 15-year-old developmentally-disabled daughter.

ICE says that Jimenez-Sanchez, whose real name is Karen Araujo-Jimenez, first entered the U.S. illegally in October 1999, and that she was immediately confronted by federal agents and voluntarily returned to Mexico the same day.

She was then caught posing as another person while trying to enter the U.S. in Douglas, Arizona in May 2001, according to ICE spokesman Carl Rusnok, and was again deported immediately.

Jimenez-Sanchez was taken into custody by ICE again in December 2012, when she was pulled over and cited for driving without a license.

She spent six months in ICE custody. In May 2013, according to ICE, an immigration judge upheld a previous removal order for her and ordered her to be deported by the Department of Homeland Security.

But she had been granted a one-year stay of deportation a month earlier. The stays were extended for another year in May 2014, March 2015 and March 2016, Rusnok said, but her latest stay request was denied March 14 of this year.

But she was picked up again last Wednesday when she showed up for a routine immigration check-in despite knowing her latest stay request had been denied, according to Kain-Rios.

Kain-Rios said she could not divulge where Jimenez-Sanchez had been deported to, but said she had been in communication with the woman since she was deported.

Kain-Rios says Jimenez-Sanchez is trying to decide whether to continue fighting to be in the U.S. Many of her stays had been granted because she was caring and helping educate her disabled daughter, Kain-Rios says.

Her case is the third high-profile case involving women scheduled to be deported out of the Denver area. Jeanette Vizguerra and Ingrid LaTorre are both in sanctuary at Denver-area churches to stave off their deportations.

The cases come amid an increased effort by immigration officials under the Trump administration to deport people living in the country illegally no matter if they’ve been convicted of a violent crime or not.


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Police investigating deadly Greeley crash as homicide; suspicious pickup truck sought

GREELEY, Colo. – Officers believe that a deadly single-vehicle accident that happened late Tuesday morning may actually be a road rage homicide, and they are investigating it as such.

Witnesses told police they saw an altercation between two pickups just after 11 a.m. Tuesday near 3029 29th Street.

“The information we are getting right now is that this may be some type of road rage incident,” said Lt. Adam Turk, with the Greeley Police Department. “We don’t think there is any known association between the occupants of the two vehicles at this time.”

Police said one man was found dead in a pickup that crashed into a retaining wall.

But several witnesses told officers they had heard an explosion before the victim’s truck crashed, and also said they had seen a small Chevrolet S-10 leaving the area at high speeds at the same time.

“The injuries on the male that was deceased on scene raised suspicions. They were not consistent with the traffic accident,” said Turk.

Police would not confirm whether the victim had been shot, pending the autopsy report, which is expected to be performed and released Wednesday.

The Greeley Police Department says the pickup seen leaving the scene is a tan/gold 1998-2002 model Chevrolet S-10 ZR2 with black fender flares.

Though the police department is not identifying the man who died in the crash, an employee at Estes Valley Asphalt confirmed one of the company’s employees was the man killed.

Family friends gathered at the crash site, leaving behind a memorial for the man killed.

“He was a devoted father of two young children, and he didn’t deserve this,” said Yvonne Munoz, a family friend who came to pay her respects. “He means a lot to a lot of people.”

Friends say the victim had been in the area working on a construction job.

“It doesn’t seem real. Like one minute he’s working and the next minute he’s gone,” said Roy Varela, a good friend of the victim. “We were just with him on Easter. We had a BBQ at the park. Everything was fine. And then this — everything happened so fast.”

Across the street, an employee at the Harley Davidson dealership said surveillance video did not capture the entire incident, but showed someone getting out of what appeared to be the suspect’s car and then getting back into it.

The police department asks anyone with more information about the incident to call them at 970-350-9600.


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Man accused of starting massive Logan Co. wildfire was welding in dry corn field, sheriff says

STERLING, Colo. – Charges have been filed against a man for allegedly starting the wildfire that burned more than 32,000 acres and killed hundreds of livestock across three Colorado counties in early March.

Patrick Svoboda, 39, faces fourth-degree arson and reckless endangerment charges in the fire. Fire investigators found that Svoboda had been welding a feed trough in a dry corn field on March 6, and sparks caught the field on fire.

The Logan County Sheriff’s Office noted that there were red flag warnings in place on that windy day, and that Svoboda’s alleged actions were “reckless.”

The sheriff’s office says it obtained a warrant for Svoboda’s arrest on April 19 and that he has since turned himself in.

The fire burned around 32,000 acres in Logan, Phillips and Sedgewick counties and killed hundreds of cattle and other livestock and wildlife.

The sheriff’s office had said on March 8 they had found the fire’s point of origin and that the landowners were cooperating.

Investigators with the Colorado Bureau of Investigation helped Logan County investigators determine that Svoboda was allegedly involved, though hundreds of fire and rescue personnel from multiple counties and cities in the area were involved in putting the fire down after three days.

“Watching neighbors helping neighbors, and strangers helping strangers has been remarkable, and that’s what makes it great to live in northeastern Colorado,” Logan County Sheriff Brett Powell said.


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Review underway after CU-Denver student posed as medical student at Denver Health

DENVER – Denver Health Medical Center has suspended all badge access for students and learners after a CU-Denver student got unauthorized access at the hospital by posing as a medical student.

The student, Vanessa Loznik, was banned from the Denver Health campus, and the hospital says it is working to pursue legal action against her. Continue reading

Raids target multi-million dollar meth, cocaine ring tied to Mexico operating out of Aurora market

AURORA, Colo. – Police and federal drug enforcement agents raided a market and several houses in the Denver metro area Thursday morning in connection to a multi-million dollar cocaine and methamphetamine ring connected to Mexico.

The U.S. Department of Justice says nine arrests were made by Aurora police and federal agents Thursday, and another person was in custody ahead of the raids. But 17 people total have been indicted in the trafficking ring. The indictment carries 45 total counts and includes two house forfeiture complaints. Continue reading

3 Denver deputies, including captain, suspended without pay over jail inmate’s death

DENVER – Two Denver sheriff’s deputies and a department captain will serve unpaid suspensions of between 10 and 16 days in May for policy violations that led to the death of a Denver jail inmate in November 2015.

The Denver Department of Safety on Wednesday released its disciplinary review of the deputies’ actions in the death of Michael Marshall, a jail inmate who was pulled off life support and died several days after the confrontation with the deputies, who staff the city/county jail. Continue reading

Kelsie Schelling’s mother encouraged by renewed Pueblo search for daughter; emotions still raw

DENVER – Kelsie Schelling’s mother says she was encouraged when investigators dug up the backyard of a home last week to search for new clues in her daughter’s disappearance, but says the search “didn’t yield the results” the family was hoping for.

Schelling’s mother, Laura Saxton, gave her first sit-down interview to Denver7 about the renewed effort by law enforcement to bring closure to the case.

Schelling, pregnant, heads to Pueblo but never returns

Schelling, 21, was eight weeks pregnant when she vanished on Feb. 4, 2013. She had her first doctor’s visit and had seen a sonogram of her baby earlier that day.

After the trip to the doctor and a shift at work, the Denver woman drove two hours south to Pueblo to meet up with Lucas, and has never been seen since.

Lucas was found to have parked her car at an area Walmart the day after she disappeared, and an unidentified man picked it up and eventually dropped it off again at the St. Mary-Corwin Medical Center. Police recovered the vehicle Feb. 7.

Schelling was never seen in surveillance video at either location.

Investigators discovered through text messages that Schelling and Lucas had talked to one another once she had reached Pueblo, but the messages stopped shortly after she got there.

Last week, investigators with the Pueblo Police Department and Colorado Bureau of Investigation served a search warrant at a home in Pueblo that used to belong to Donthe Lucas’s grandmother – a home Lucas often stayed at.

Schelling’s mother talks new leads, emotions with Denver7

“This was a pretty big step on their part…a pretty big excavation they did,” Saxton told Denver7.

She and others have long thought Lucas, who was Schelling’s boyfriend and the father of her unborn child, had something to do with Schelling’s disappearance. He was once charged with the fraudulent use of her credit card after she disappeared, but the charges were dropped.

Last Friday, the investigators announced they had found new evidence during their dig, but did not specify what it was – only saying it wasn’t Schelling’s body.

Saxton says Pueblo police notified her ahead of the search, and asked that she and other family members be in Pueblo during the search in case anything turned up.

“We went into it with really high hopes,” Saxton said, though she added that she believes they should have looked at the home sooner.

She says a neighbor of the home authorities were searching let her and other family members stay there during the daytime of the two-day search.

Saxton told Denver7 that the investigations team walked her through the dig, which brought her “comfort” in seeing how hard crews were working.

“As far as items that were found, I don’t know what those were. I don’t know that they’ll tell us what those were,” she said. “But hopefully those items will be something that will help move the investigation along.”

But ultimately, investigators did not find exactly what Saxton was looking for – her daughter.

“Unfortunately, it didn’t yield the results that we were hoping for,” Saxton said. “We were hoping we would get to bring Kelsie home, so it’s been really hard in the aftermath dealing with that.”

Lucas’s grandmother no longer lives at the home investigators searched last week, and Saxton says that despite the new developments in the case, she thinks some people who might know about her daughter’s disappearance might still be afraid to talk to police about what they know.

“I still believe that somebody knows something and they’re just afraid to come forward. But I just feel like there’s a lot of fear there for people,” Saxton said. “I just keep hoping that someone will have a heart and do the right thing.”

But she says she is encouraged the Pueblo Police Department – with new investigators on the case – is taking a new look at Schelling’s disappearance with help from CBI. She had previously been critical of the way the police department handled the case initially, and has herself campaigned extensively for help finding her daughter.

“I think we’re at the very least showing that we’re not going to give up, and we might get knocked down many, many times over, but we’re always going to get back up and keep fighting for Kelsie and the baby,” Saxton said.

Still, after being missing for four years, Saxton admits that the likelihood of her daughter being found alive wane more and more each day.

“I can’t really imagine the rest of my life without her, but that’s something I’m having to come to terms with,” Saxton said. “So I hope, at the very least, we get to bring her and the baby home and give them a proper burial.”

Schelling’s family has long offered a reward for information leading investigators to their daughter or to an arrest and conviction of someone in her disappearance – upping the reward to $100,000 in February and organizing a Colorado Missing Persons Day event at the state Capitol on Feb. 3.

The reward still stands at $50,000.

Pueblo police say the investigation into the case remains ongoing and that they are looking for tips related to the case. To submit anonymous tips in the case, contact Pueblo Crime Stoppers at 542-STOP or go to their website. You can also contact the Colorado Bureau of Investigation at 303-239-4300.


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Suit claims Elbert County, commissioners spied on employee’s computer, made false claims

ELBERT COUNTY, Colo. – Elbert County and its county commissioners face a federal lawsuit alleging they spied on the county’s director of community development and planning’s every move over a several months last year.

Kyle Fenner filed the suit against the county and its board of commissioners in early March in U.S. District Court of Colorado. In it, she claims that the county commissioners made themselves her supervisor after they spent several months monitoring everything she did on her work computer.

The suit alleges that the board of county commissioners voted to become Fenner’s supervisor in December 2015, but that the county had actually been monitoring her computer since September 2015, allegedly “collecting over 50,000 screen shots” from her work computer.

It’s unclear in the suit exactly why the county started monitoring her computer in the first place, but in April 2016, Elbert County Attorney Wade Gateley hired Mountain States Employers Council, Inc. (MSEC) to conduct a “workplace investigation” on Fenner’s internet usage during work hours on her county computer, whether she used the computer for personal or commercial gain, or if she “made ‘demeaning’, ‘defaming’ and ‘disparaging’ comments about county employees or elected officials from February 1, through April 11, 2016,” according to the suit.

“The IT investigation was basically a surveillance tool that they had started running on my machine, and for about 70 calendar days, they snapped a picture of my desktop under every two seconds,” Fenner told Denver7.

It says that the investigation into her computer usage was discussed at a public work session on April 11 last year, at which Gateley said that Fenner was “under investigation” for “possible criminal activity.”

A week later, Fenner’s name was also publicly discussed as being involved in a “criminal investigation,” according to the suit. And on May 10, County Commissioner Robert Rowland emailed a listserv saying that Fenner was the subject of an investigation and asked the recipients to attend a public meeting about the investigation.

According to the lawsuit, Rowland then in June told public citizens to use open records law to look up her case with the district attorney’s office, whom he had sent the collection of records from Fenner’s computer.

“I felt so violated knowing that Commissioner Rowland was going to have a digital copy of 50,000 screenshots of me that I created,” Fenner said.

But the special counsel investigation into Fenner’s computer usage had wrapped up on May 12, according to the suit, and found that she had indeed made a “demeaning, disparaging, or insulting” comment via a private email service on her work computer.

But the special counsel also stated that though she should be reprimanded for the comment and reminded of county computer rules, that the comments Fenner made weren’t made “pursuant to [Fenner’s] official duties; did not affect in a substantial way [Fenner’s] ability to efficiently provide services as an employee; and could arguably address a matter of public concern.”

According to the suit, the special counsel also exonerated Fenner of any other alleged violations, and recommended that the board and county correct the record to show Fenner was never close to facing criminal charges.

Fenner is seeking compensatory, statutory and punitive damages for humiliation, anger, anxiety, emotion distress, frustration and embarrassment, according to the suit.

Rowland is no longer a county commissioner. He declined to seek re-election last November. Denver7 stopped by his house Wednesday for comment, but was told to get off his property.

Current commissioner Danny Wilcox told Denver7 the situation surrounding the suit was “frustrating” but said he could not comment further on specifics of the case.

Denver7 requested details on expenditures related to the investigation into Fenner’s computer usage on April 6. An Elbert County records custodian told Denver7 Wednesday the documents were in the mail.


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