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Former Weld County teacher’s assistant faces new child sex crime charges at second school
WELD COUNTY, Colo. – A former teacher’s assistant already facing charges for allegedly having sex with one of her 14-year-old students faces new charges after she allegedly kissed and sent explicit photos to a 6th-grade student at Prairie Heights Middle School in Evans.
Jerica Zoe Enriquez, 25, faces four new charges for the alleged indiscretions uncovered after her previous arrest in December: sexual exploitation of children, two counts of internet sexual exploitation of a child, and criminal attempt to commit sexual assault on a child.
According to her latest arrest affidavit, a teacher at Prairie Heights contacted an Evans police officer in early January to report that she had heard a student talking about a teacher “sleeping with” and kissing one of the students.
The alleged contact happened during the 2015-16 school year, when the victim was in 6th grade.
According to the affidavit, Enriquez noticed the victim on his first day of school that year and immediately asked about him and where he lived. When he asked Enriquez why she was asking him such personal questions, she replied, “Sorry.”
Later in the school year, the two were alone together again, and Enriquez started staring at the boy and moving closer and closer toward him.
He asked about her behavior, according to the affidavit, to which she again replied, “Sorry.”
But she continued inching her face closer to his, even though he “thought it was weird,” according to the affidavit, so he kissed her, saying he wanted to “see how it was” to kiss a woman not his age.
Enriquez allegedly replied, “That was sexy.”
According to the affidavit, Enriquez offered to have sex with the boy, but he refused. He also refused advances by Enriquez in which she tried to take him home from school, despite his mother being on her way to give him a ride.
At the end of the school year, Enriquez told the boy she would miss him, according to the affidavit.
At some point, though it’s unclear whether it happened during the school year or after, Enriquez allegedly sent two Snapchat photos to the boy: one in which she was wearing only underwear, and another in which she was nude and exposing her breasts and genitals, according to the affidavit.
She already faced charges of sexual assault on a child by a person in a position of trust and obscenity to a minor charges in the previous case. She worked at Jefferson Middle School while that incident allegedly occurred.
She is set to appear in court for status conferences in both cases Friday morning in Weld County.
Transient’s shoplifting arrest leads to charges in 2 November Denver-area murders
DENVER – A transient who already had active attempted murder warrants out of Louisiana now faces charges for two murders that happened in the Denver metro area over the span of two weeks in November.
Mikhail Anthony Purpera, 29, is now accused of murdering Patrick Murphy, a 33-year-old Englewood man, whose body was found in an Englewood pond behind the Safeway on Feb. 11.
Purpera had already been charged with murdering 54-year-old Wayland Busby on Nov. 5 of last year, but months of detective work and an incident in which Purpera was caught stealing has now led to police linking him as the killer in both cases.
Busby, who was also a transient, was found shot to death on the morning of Nov. 5 last year by a Denver park ranger patrolling along the South Platte River.
Englewood police catch shoplifting suspect, and unwittingly, alleged murderer
Denver police had already started looking at Purpera as the suspect in Busby’s murder when on Nov. 11, an Englewood officer chased down a man suspected of stealing shoes from a Walmart nearby.
The suspect, later identified as Purpera, tried to get away on a bike, but was caught.
He fought with the officers, according to an affidavit for his arrest, and exchanged several blows with them. At one point, according to the affidavit, he tried to reach for a gun in his waistband, at which point officers deployed three TASER strikes, corralling him.
Officers found meth and marijuana on him, along with several photocopied IDs from various people, including Murphy, cell phones and other official documents.
They also discovered that Purpera had an active warrant out of Gonzales, Louisiana for two counts of attempted murder.
At the time, Englewood police investigated him for meth possession, possession of weapons by a previous offender, resisting arrest, theft and drug paraphernalia possession. The officer who wrote the affidavit noted that Purpera was “also wanted in the city of Denver, as a suspect in further homicides.”
As it turns out, Purpera had allegedly murdered Murphy near the pond earlier that day, though police would not make the connection until months later.
Purpera was held without bond in Arapahoe County because of his warrants out of Louisiana, which had been issued in August 2016. But while he was in jail, people he knew from the streets started talking to police, telling them Purpera murdered Busby after an argument involving drugs and that he had also killed another man near the Englewood duck pond—things Purpera was telling his acquaintances, according to the affidavits.
Purpera allegedly showed multiple people several shell casings he said were “trophies” from the murders, and threatened one man he told about the Busby murder that he’d kill the man if “anything comes out.”
But Purpera showed another man another “trophy,” telling him he had “a present” for him.
According to the affidavit, Purpera pulled a bloody baseball cap from a backpack and handed it to the acquaintance, telling him: “I shot somebody else” and that he had “killed him for no reason.”
Purpera also allegedly showed his acquaintance the man’s ID he said he had killed, which the acquaintance later confirmed to police was that of Murphy.
He had also told the acquaintance at the time that he was looking for a new pair of shoes, as his had blood on them. He allegedly shoplifted the shoes from Walmart later that day.
Second murder is linked to Purpera
In the meantime, nobody actually knew that Murphy was dead.
He lived with his father in Englewood, but was known to disappear for periods of time. His own family said he was an alcoholic.
But his father reported him missing on Dec. 12 last year nonetheless, telling police that it was curious that his son’s car, electric razor and toothbrush were still at the home, and that he had called his son’s phone at one point, and heard another man pick up the phone, say, “Yo,” then hang up.
By that point, Purpera had already been officially charged with first-degree murder and aggravated robbery in Busby’s death.
Then, on Feb. 11, a teenager walking by the duck pond, near S. Broadway and Highway 285 in Englewood, saw a man’s body lying face-down in the pond, which was in the process of being drained, as it is every couple of years to remove sediment, the affidavit says.
Officers recovered the body, and the coroner confirmed that it was that of Murphy. He was killed by a gunshot wound to the head.
Police went back and reviewed their interviews with Purpera’s acquaintances and the documents and phones discovered on Purpera when he was arrested for shoplifting.
They realized that at least one of the documents and one of the cell phones found on Purpera that day in November belonged to Murphy. Another acquaintance told police that another man had said he helped Purpera dump Murphy’s body in the pond.
The Englewood officer signed the affidavit for Murphy’s murder on March 22, and official charges against Purpera were filed May 19.
He faces first-degree murder, aggravated robbery, possession of a weapon by a previous offender, possession of a controlled substance, resisting arrest, obstructing a peace officer, possession of drug paraphernalia and theft charges out of Englewood for the case.
He is currently being held at the Denver County Jail on the murder charge out of Denver.
Colorado set to use marijuana money to implement opioid treatment program in worst-hit counties
UPDATE: The governor signed this bill into law on Wednesday, a day after this story was originally published.
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DENVER – Colorado is set to use a half-million dollars of its marijuana sales money each year for at least the next two years to implement an opioid addiction treatment program for two of the state’s counties hit hardest by the surging opioid crisis. Continue reading
Police say it ‘appears’ Erie man stabbed wife, son to death before committing suicide
ERIE, Colo. – Police are treating the case involving three people found dead in an Erie home Saturday as a murder-suicide, they said Tuesday.
Erie Police Chief Kimberly Stewart said Tuesday that “it appears” that John Paul “JP” Farrar, 48, stabbed his wife, 40-year-old Elizabeth, and 4-year-old son, Ian, to death before committing suicide by a self-inflicted gunshot wound.
She said the case was being treated as a domestic violence-related murder-suicide, though the Boulder County Coroner’s Office will make the final determination on the family’s manners and causes of death.
The three were found dead late Saturday morning inside their home on Gordon Court, near Brennan Street in Erie.
Police said they had received a tip that there was a “possibly deceased” person inside the home before they went to investigate. They had said they were not looking for any outstanding suspects at the time.
Stewart said Tuesday she didn’t anticipate she’d release any more information on the case before the coroner’s report is finalized.
Colorado to start fining people caught ‘rolling coal’: what you need to know
DENVER – Colorado Gov. John Hickenlooper is set this week to sign a bill that will up the fines for so-called “coal rollers” who use modified diesel trucks to smoke out unwitting bystanders.
But what exactly is “rolling coal,” and why did Colorado’s Legislature spend time on two separate bills this session to punish those who do it?
What is coal rolling?
“Coal rolling” has roots in diesel truck pulls, competitions in which drivers modify their diesel engines to pull sleds or other trailers loaded with weight.
But in recent years, people have started to modify their trucks with switches or other fuel or computer modifications that allow more fuel into the engine, creating more diesel exhaust.
The thick clouds of black smoke are evident to those who have seen them, as they are much larger and thicker than a typical diesel exhaust.
Some online retailers started selling kits for people to easily modify their trucks, though regulators have cracked down on them in recent years. But many environmental activists say that the fad is polluting the atmosphere, and others who have been choked by the excess exhaust say it’s simply a nuisance.
Colorado’s past tries at outlawing rolling coal fail
Hickenlooper told the Denver Post he plans to sign Senate Bill 278, saying Colorado would be “well to be rid” of the “cruel” practice.
But SB 278 is the first bill upping the fines for coal rolling that has passed in Colorado after several attempts.
House Bill 1102, which similarly would have added fines to those caught rolling coal, died in the Senate earlier in the session.
In the 2016 session, Larimer County Democrat Rep. Joann Ginal introduced a bill that would have hit people caught rolling coal with a $35 fine and points against their license, but it died before reaching the governor’s desk.
What does Senate Bill 278 do?
But Ginal’s final attempt this session succeeded. She and Sen. Don Coram, a southwest Colorado Republican, cosponsored Senate Bill 278 after House Bill 1102 failed over concerns involving work and agricultural trucks.
The final version calls for a $100 fine for anyone caught rolling coal in a vehicle under 14,000 pounds, but carries exclusions for commercial vehicles and carriers, agricultural vehicles and other commercial vehicles and motor carriers.
Cyclists and police were among those who have voiced concerns about being hit by “coal rollers.”
Fort Collins police in past years have said they were responding to more complaints of coal rolling, and the New York Times reported last year that the state had seen a 5 percent increase in complaints.
What have feds, other states done?
The EPA has said that the modifications being done to diesel trucks violated the Clear Air Act, which has caused some manufacturers of the kits, as well as auto shops, to stop selling the kits or performing the modifications.
But it hasn’t stopped everyone, as police departments say it is a hard rule to enforce in certain situations.
New Jersey banned rolling coal in 2015 (it now could lead to a fine of up to $5,000), and both Maryland and Illinois have introduced bills to put a stop to the practice.
Illinois’ bill has yet to become law, while Maryland’s sits on the governor’s desk, awaiting a signature.
But should Hickenlooper sign the bill this week, Colorado’s law would be just the second of its kind in the U.S.
Denver officer suffered broken femur in Saturday shooting; suicidal suspect still hospitalized
DENVER – The Denver Police Department officer who was shot during an incident with a man in crisis early Saturday morning suffered a broken femur in the shooting, and had only been working as a solo officer for three weeks.
The Denver Police Department named the suspect involved in the incident as Brandon Gerwing, 23. He has no prior criminal record, though officers had to talk him down during a similar incident at his home last October, police said Monday.
Gerwing was shot several times in his torso, police said, and he remains hospitalized in critical condition as of Monday. Once he is released from the hospital, he faces investigation on attempted first-degree murder and first-degree assault on a peace officer charges.
Police said Monday that several officers tried to de-escalate the situation after they arrived to Gerwing’s home near South Quitman and West Armherst around 4:40 a.m. Saturday.
Most of the officers had set up about 100 feet from where Gerwing was in his garage, telling him they were there to help, according to police.
But he “wasn’t receptive,” officers said Monday, and after 25 minutes of negotiations, continued to make “angry statements,” a police spokesperson said.
The officers had yet to see that he allegedly had a handgun in his possession, which the department says he suddenly pulled out and moved rapidly toward the officers at the scene. The department said Monday that Gerwing fired at the officers first.
A spokesperson for the department said Gerwing got within about 10 feet of the officers when he started shooting. Officer John Allred deployed his TASER on Gerwing, hitting him.
At the same time, Sgt. Chad Kendall fired his handgun at Gerwing, hitting him several times.
Allred was shot in the leg and suffered a broken femur, and Gerwing was shot several times. No other officers were injured.
Denver police confirmed that Gerwing was using social media while the situation was ongoing, and said he was also suspected of being under the influence of alcohol.
Gerwing was not charged or cited in the October incident.
Sgt. Kendal is an 11-year veteran of the department and has been put on standard administrative leave while the shooting is investigated. None of the other four officers involved have been put on leave.
The department says it will release body camera video of the shooting as soon as it interviews Gerwing and Allred. It also said that all of the officers at the scene that morning had completed crisis intervention training.
“We send sincere condolences to the injured police officer and his family and [are] praying for his recovery,” a Gerwing family spokesperson told Denver7.
3 Colorado district attorneys join U.S. prosecutors in opposition to Sessions’ maximum sentence memo
DENVER – Three of Colorado’s district attorneys are among dozens of local and state prosecutors from across the country who have signed on to a letter to U.S. Attorney General Jeff Sessions discussing their concerns over a new directive calling for maximum sentences for low-level offenders.
Last week, Sessions sent a memo to U.S. attorneys requiring them to “charge and pursue the most serious, readily provable offense” that alleged criminals are accused of, and to pursue cases that “carry the most substantial guidelines sentence, including mandatory minimum sentences.”
His directive immediately set off a storm in the criminal justice world, as it stands in direct contradiction of Obama-era policies aimed at reducing prison populations by exonerating low-level drug offenders. Some said Sessions was trying to bring the U.S. back to the “war on drugs” policies of the Reagan and George W. Bush presidencies.
Sessions had said numerous times as a U.S. senator that getting rid of mandatory minimum sentences harmed law enforcement efforts, which defense attorneys and other members of Congress disagreed with.
But Friday, Denver District Attorney Beth McCann, Breckenridge District Attorney Bruce Brown and Boulder District Attorney Stan Garnett signed on to the letter opposing Sessions’ directives, along with 28 other current or former district attorneys, city attorneys and attorneys general.
They wrote that the directive “marks an unnecessary and unfortunate return to past ‘tough on crime’ practices that we now know simply don’t enhance or promote the safety of our communities.”
“There is no empirical evidence to suggest that increases in sentences, particularly for low-level offenses, decrease the crime rate,” they wrote, adding that the idea that long-term sentences served as a deterrent for future criminal action was “questionable at best.”
The letter says that not only will there be “definitive and significant” actual costs to imprisoning more people, the “reinvigorated…failed ‘war on drugs’” would have a “human cost as well.”
“Instead of providing people who commit low-level drug offenses or who are struggling with mental illness with treatment, support and rehabilitation programs, the policy will subject them to decades of incarceration,” the letter says.
The prosecutors also pointed out that a February paper by Law Enforcement Leaders says that officers “need not use arrest, conviction and prison as the default response for every broken law.”
The prosecutors wrote that they would continue to use “innovative approaches” to prosecuting crimes in their respective jurisdictions.
“It is through these priorities that prosecutors can best advance public safety and fortify trust in the legitimacy of our criminal justice system,” they wrote.
Sessions’ directive puts no exact timeline in place for the changes to happen. A bipartisan group of congressmen have introduced a bill seeking to counteract Sessions’ directive.
Colorado correctional officer sues prison captain over alleged sexual harassment
DENVER – A female correctional officer is suing a prison officer and the Colorado’s executive director of the state Department of Corrections in federal court over claims the officer sexually harassed her, and that she was retaliated against when she cried foul.
The suit was filed in U.S. District Court of Colorado over the weekend on behalf of Leticia Cornella, who first took a job with the Department of Corrections in September 2015.
In the suit, Cornella accuses Scott Lancaster, who was her supervisor, of sexual harassment. Department of Corrections Executive Director Rick Raemisch is also named as a defendant in the suit.
Cornella is seeking back pay, punitive damages, reassignment and court and attorneys’ fees should a judge decide in her favor that she was harassed and subjected to discrimination at work.
According to the lawsuit, Cornella, 46, had a one-time sexual encounter with Lancaster shortly after she started working with him at the Limon Correctional Facility.
But she decided that the relationship shouldn’t continue since Lancaster was her supervisor, which the suit says Lancaster also agreed with. But the suit accuses him of backpedaling on that agreement, and eventually subjecting Cornella to ongoing harassment.
“It is the rare case in which a sexual encounter between a supervisor and his or her underling leads to a stroll into a romantic sunset of marital bliss,” the suit says. “More often, the results of such an encounter leads to what has occurred in this case: misunderstood motives, unnecessary fear of reprisal and, most harmful of all, the exercise of power and dominance by a male supervisor over the future employment opportunities of a female employee.”
After Cornella told Lancaster that she did not want to have any further sexual encounters with him, Lancaster “assured…that he understood,” according to the lawsuit.
But she “was wrong,” according to the suit, which says that Lancaster started making advances on her again a couple months later. When she rebuffed him, according to the suit, “[h]e then stormed out of her office, enraged. He would not, he said emphatically, be ignored.”
Even when Cornella met her now-husband, according to the suit, Lancaster continued to make advances. While the three were all hanging out one time, Lancaster allegedly made lewd comments and gestures toward Cornella in front of her husband—one of which she recorded on her cell phone, the suit says.
And he continued to retaliate against her at work, according to the suit, calling her a “porn queen” in front of other staffers at one point last June.
Cornella put in a transfer request, but Lancaster was instead transferred to the prison in Canon City, and Cornella dropped her transfer request.
But according to the suit, Lancaster continued to prod her to have her come join him in Canon City—offers she refused.
And months later—in September 2016—Lancaster transferred back to Limon. Cornella was assigned to be his administrative assistant and would be working directly with him.
The lawsuit says that Lancaster’s behavior “escalated” immediately upon his return, and that he “began to stalk” her, suggesting they should hook up and that Cornella should “just [do] what she was told.”
He was assigned to perform her annual performance review, and the suit says that Cornella feared he would use the review to retaliate against her for denying his alleged advances.
He would stare at her often and try to be close to her, according to the suit, and his behavior “increased to the point of obsession,” she claims.
Last November, according to the suit, Cornella filed a formal complaint against Lancaster, after which she was moved to a different office and told that Lancaster was to have no further communications with her, and that all were to go through a major at the prison.
But the suit claims that didn’t happen, and when she complained to the prison’s warden, he allegedly told her to “get over it.”
“Warden Falk essentially gave Lancaster license to do whatever he pleased if he did not touch Cornella or say anything explicitly inappropriate to her,” the suit says.
In January, an investigator assigned to Cornella’s complaints found he couldn’t charge Lancaster with sexual harassment because the original encounter between him and Cornella was consensual, the lawsuit says.
But Cornella’s lawyer, Denver attorney David H. Wollins, argues that Lancaster again gained power over Cornella because of that judgment: “From that moment forward, Ms. Cornella was a marked woman,” he writes in the suit.
Cornella filed a discrimination charge with the U.S. Equal Employment Opportunity office in February, claiming that her work environment “had become so hostile that no reasonable woman” would be able to work in Cornella’s job. But the suit claims it did nothing to help.
“February and March 2017 were among the most miserable months of Ms. Cornella’s life,” the suit says, adding that Lancaster continued to invade her space.
Wollins says that the anxiety and stress at work eventually led a doctor to advise she take a week off, and diagnose her with “severe depression and anxiety.”
Upon her return, she requested not to have any contact with Lancaster—but the request was denied. She had already exhausted her paid time off, sick leave and FMLA leave.
And a transfer request to DOC headquarters has so far not been accepted, so Cornella currently remains employed by the department, but is not assigned to any positions and is not being paid. She has gotten a part-time job in the meantime, according to her attorney.
“DOC officials are taking the position that Ms. Cornella is at fault for the hostile work environment,” the suit says.
Class-action suit filed alleging Chipotle’s ‘elementary’ security, negligence led to data breach
DENVER – Chipotle faces a class-action lawsuit for the potential data breach the company first reported last month, alleging the company’s willful negligence and “elementary” security measures led to the breach and is now costing banks and customers money.
The Denver-based company first reported the possible breach late last month, saying that credit and debit cards used between March 24 and April 18 of this year may have been compromised by “unauthorized activity” on company servers.
“Consistent with good practices, consumer should closely monitor their payment card statements. If anyone sees an unauthorized charge, they should immediately notify the bank that issued the card,” the company said in its statement. “Payment card network rules generally state that cardholders are not responsible for such charges.”
And that statement is exactly what the lawsuit filed May 4 in the U.S. District Court of Colorado claims is the basis for the suit.
The suit’s class has yet to be certified, but it was filed by New Hampshire-based Bellwether Community Credit Union on the behalf of all “credit unions, banks, and other financial institutions” they may have had to reissue customers’ cards that were compromised in the breach, close compromised accounts, or remedy any false transactions.
The suit claims that there are more than 100 members of the proposed class, and that alleged damages exceed $5 million.
Though it’s still unclear how many customers may have been affected in the alleged breach, the suit claims that the company knew it was putting itself at risk for further security breaches after a 2004 breach and a handful of recent ones involving other food-service companies.
“The deficiencies in Chipotle’s security system include a lack of elementary security measures, which even the most inexperienced IT professional could identify as problematic,” the suit says.
It claims that the company, which had around 2,250 U.S. locations as of March 31, failed to upgrade its security after a breach the company says cost it about $4.3 million between 2004 and 2006.
The suit also cites Chipotle’s February 2017 annual report to the U.S. Securities and Exchange Commission (SEC), in which the company itself said:
“We may in the future become subject to additional claims for purportedly fraudulent transactions arising out of the actual or alleged theft of credit or debit card information, and we may also be subject to lawsuits or other proceedings in the future relating to these types of incidents … Consumer perception of our brand could also be negatively affected by these events, which could further adversely affect our results and prospects.
“The liabilities resulting from any of the foregoing would likely be far greater than the losses we recorded in connection with the data breach incident in 2004.”
The suit claims that one of the biggest problems that led to the hacking was Chipotle’s failure to adhere to credit card companies’ regulations that required companies to start using chip technology by October 2015.
The chips mask information contained within transactions about credit card information, unlike the former magnetic strip cards.
But the suit claims that Chipotle stated specifically that it would not switch over to the chip-only system because it would “slow down customer lines.”
By doing so, the company opened itself up to face damages from litigation, as per the regulations set forth by the card companies that said that any business not adhering to the October 2015 deadline would “agree to be liable for damages resulting from any data breaches,” according to the lawsuit.
The suit says that Chipotle has said that 70 percent of its sales involved a debit or credit card transaction, and estimates that “hundreds of thousands” of Chipotle customers could have had their private credit and debit card numbers, and information relating to them, compromised.
Since the burden is on banks to close accounts and reissue new cards, the suit claims that any bank having to do so because of the Chipotle breach is damaged by the breach and subject to compensation.
The class, should it be certified, requests damages and injunctive and declaratory relief on the basis that Chipotle was negligent in its failure to upgrade its security systems for transactions and data storage.
It asks a judge to issue an injunction forcing Chipotle to adhere to industry-standard encryption methods, switch to chip-card readers, and undergo a large audit and subsequent upgrade of its security systems.
A request for comment made to Chipotle had not been returned as of the time of publishing.
A scheduling conference for the case has been set for July 18 in Denver.
Bipartisan bills to protect marijuana from federal crackdown introduced by Colo. members of Congress
DENVER – Efforts to protect states with legal marijuana programs from any possible federal crackdown are gaining bipartisan momentum in Congress, and several of Colorado’s lawmakers are playing a big part in trying to get legislation passed.
U.S. Reps. Diana DeGette (D) and Mike Coffman (R) introduced a bill Thursday that revises the federal Controlled Substances Act to keep Congress or any federal entities from interfering in legal state marijuana markets.
The two introduced a similar bill in 2012 after Colorado voters first approved the constitutional amendment that legalized recreational marijuana in the state, but it ultimately failed.
“This bill makes clear that we’re not going back to the days of raids on legal dispensaries, of folks living in fear that they’re not going to get the medical marijuana they need, or that they might get jailed for using it,” DeGette said.
“While I have opposed the legalization of marijuana, the people of Colorado voted for an initiative in 2012 that legalized marijuana and placed it in our state’s constitution,” Coffman said.
“Since it this is clearly not a matter of interstate commerce, I believe that the people of Colorado had every right, under the U.S. Constitution, to decide this issue for themselves and as their representative in Congress, I have an obligation to respect the will of the people of Colorado and that’s why I’m reintroducing this bill with Congresswoman DeGette,” he continued.
Their bill comes a day after U.S. Sens. Cory Gardner (R) and Michael Bennet (D), along with a bipartisan group of senators, introduced a bill that would ease regulations on how marijuana businesses are allowed to deal with banks.
It would bar federal regulators from stopping or penalizing a bank from working with legal marijuana businesses or taking away FDIC approval from the bank. It would also stop banks and regulators from barring loans to people operating legal marijuana businesses.
While some Colorado marijuana businesses now allow people to use debit or credit cards, many still operate on cashless ATM or cash-only systems.
“The lack of access to banking services for marijuana businesses is a key issue in Colorado,” Bennet said. “It raises significant public safety concerns for both employees and customers of these businesses and creates compliance and oversight challenges.
Rep. Jared Polis (D) introduced a bill earlier this year that aims to have the feds regulate marijuana like alcohol.
Also introduced in recent weeks was a bill by Virginia Republican Rep. Thomas Garrett, which lifts federal restrictions on medical and recreational marijuana programs and allows states to operate their own. The bill also has support from both sides of the aisle.