After a six-day trial, a Denver jury found Ernest Cunningham guilty of second-degree murder in the death of Kelsey Roberts, 23, according to the Denver District Attorney’s Office.
Another resident in Roberts’ building called the police shortly after 4:30 p.m. on June 29, 2024, when he heard a gunshot and what sounded like someone running away toward the building’s stairwell, according to Cunningham’s arrest affidavit.
When he looked out into the hallway, the resident spotted a spent bullet casing on the floor, police said in the affidavit.
Another resident saw Cunningham leaving the building from his balcony and took a video of Cunningham’s car as it left the parking lot, police said. Police traced the car back to Cunningham using that video, which showed its license plate, and surveillance video from the apartment complex.
Roberts’ husband told police that he works with Cunningham and that Cunningham “knew where they lived and had issues with him,” police wrote in the affidavit.
The husband said he did not like Cunningham because the man used drugs at work. After Cunningham was fired, he began calling Roberts’ husband and threatening him. Cunningham had visited the apartment before, but did not live in the building, according to the affidavit.
Denver police officers arrived at the southeast Denver apartment building in the 800 block of South Dexter Street less than five minutes after the first 911 call was made.
When they arrived, Denver officers saw blood splatters on Roberts’ door and said it appeared someone had forced their way into the apartment, according to the affidavit. Roberts’ body was found just inside the apartment.
She died from her injuries on scene, police wrote in the affidavit.
Denver and Aurora police officers found Cunningham’s car near a northern Aurora hotel in the 16400 block E. 40th Circle later that evening. Cunningham was arrested inside.
The man faces up to 48 years in prison, according to the office. Cunningham will appear in court for a sentencing hearing on Feb. 27, court records show.
Swa Bay, 22, and Nu La, 23, were sentenced to 18 years in the Colorado Department of Corrections in September as part of plea agreements with the Denver district attorney’s office.
Bay and La, along with Pah Reh, 21, and Luh Reh, 23, were arrested and charged with murder after Kaing was killed by bullet from a nearby shooting while unloading food from her car outside her Xenia Street apartment complex on July 15, 2022.
Investigators accused the four men of firing more than three dozen rounds at a passing vehicle that they thought didn’t belong in the neighborhood.
In an unrelated case, Lu Reh was sentenced to an additional six years in prison after pleading guilty to manslaughter in the 2022 shooting death of Ricardo Ryans.
A Denver man pleaded guilty to second-degree murder on Thursday for fatally stabbing a passing driver with a 3-foot sword in the city’s College View neighborhood.
Patrick Browne, 40, was arrested Sept. 29, 2024, after police said he stabbed 20-year-old Isaiah Martinez after a fight.
Martinez was driving in the area when he stopped at a red light at West Evans Avenue and South Lipan Street, where Browne was standing on the corner, according to Denver police.
Browne started arguing with Martinez and a passenger in the car and threw a drink through the car window. When Martinez and the passenger got out of the car, Browne pulled a large sword out of his roller suitcase and stabbed Martinez in the stomach as he was trying to get back in the car.
Martinez died at the hospital a short time later.
Browne was charged with first-degree murder, assault and felony menacing in the stabbing. All three charges were dismissed Thursday after he pleaded guilty to second-degree murder, according to court records.
Browne faces 20 years in the Colorado Department of Corrections when he’s sentenced on Nov. 13, the Denver District Attorney’s Office said.
Todd Lynn Washington, 42, was convicted of reckless endangerment in August, but the Denver jury could not reach a verdict on first-degree murder charges in the case.
Washington’s second trial was held this month, and on Monday, a Denver jury ruled he was guilty of two lesser counts of manslaughter and not guilty on two counts of first-degree murder, court records show.
He was sentenced to six years in the Colorado Department of Corrections by Denver District Court Judge Eric Johnson on Wednesday, with credit for nearly 2 years of time served while his case was ongoing.
Washington was also sentenced to 240 days in jail for two counts of reckless endangerment, both misdemeanors.
Washington’s attorney, Anna Geigle with the Denver law firm Geigle Morales, in a statement thanked the jury and court “for their professionalism and commitment to ensuring that justice was fairly administered.”
“The subject matter of this case was profoundly serious, and we deeply appreciate the time and care each juror devoted to hearing the evidence and reaching a verdict,” Geigle said.
In a statement, Denver District Attorney John Walsh said his office respects the jury’s decision and “are pleased that Todd Washington and Shon McPherson – who was sentenced in September to life in prison for his role in the murders — are being held accountable for their crimes.”
Washington and McPherson, 34, were arrested in November 2023 after police said the pair opened fire outside Hell’s Lovers Motorcycle Club, killing Michael David, 43, and Joshua Batts, 39, and injuring three others.
Washington and McPherson were accused of planning the shooting after a security guard put his hands on Washington’s daughter and she was kicked out of the club.
Hernandez was charged as an adult, but his plea deal dropped five felonies from his case: first-degree murder after deliberation, first-degree murder with extreme indifference, attempted first-degree murder, first-degree assault and illegal discharge of a firearm, court records show. Two violent crime sentence enhancers also were dismissed.
Denver officers responded to the fatal shooting in the 500 block of North Sheridan Boulevard just before 6:30 p.m. June 8, 2024.
When they arrived, they found Quintana with gunshot wounds, police said. Paramedics took Quintana to a hospital, where he died. A woman who was with Quintana also was shot but survived, according to the district attorney’s office.
Denver police identified Hernandez and his codefendant, Simon Eugene Elijah Gurule, as suspects through automated license plate readers and community tips.
The 29-year-old’s jury trial is scheduled to start in January, according to court records. He faces the same five felonies that Hernandez originally was charged with and, if convicted of first-degree murder, will be sentenced to life in prison.
Denver prosecutors on Tuesday opened their long-awaited criminal case against former business owner Jay Bianchi, who is accused of drugging and sexually assaulting three women at his Grateful Dead-themed bars between 2020 and 2024, as well as drugging another man and a woman during that time period.
“This is not about character or lifestyles or choices the victims may have made,” said chief deputy DA Chris Curtis in his opening statements. “It’s not a memory test … (and) it’s absolutely not some kind of gigantic conspiracy against Jay Bianchi. So don’t get distracted. Focus on the evidence.”
Bianchi, 56, was arrested in April 2024 and charged with three counts of sexual assault dating to Oct. 31, 2020, in the 700 block of East Colfax Avenue; one count of unlawful sexual contact, a misdemeanor, on Nov. 1, 2020, in the 900 block of West First Avenue; and three counts of felony sexual assault on April 7, 2024, in the same block of West First Avenue.
He has pleaded not guilty on all counts.
The first sexual assault, alleged by Bonnie Utter, took place following a Halloween party at Sancho’s Broken Arrow, formerly at 741 E. Colfax Ave., in 2020. Utter’s friend Kylie Heringer, who worked as a sound engineer for Bianchi, also alleged that Bianchi groped her the next day in his office at So Many Roads Brewery, formerly at 918 W. First Ave., and that Bianchi attempted to discredit the women with character assassination and coercion. Both of his businesseshave since closed.
The Denver Post is identifying Utter and Heringer because they previously agreed to speak to the newspaper about their experiences.
Another woman identified during the proceedings alleged she was sexually assaulted by Bianchi in March 2024, and a man and a woman separately said that Bianchi drugged them — in the man’s case, for attempting to intervene in a conflict at Sancho’s. All will testify as part of the case, Curtis said.
Bianchi, dressed in a black jacket with a maroon tie, sat expressionless most of Tuesday as he watched each witness and speaker, occasionally taking notes. His case has been delayed multiple times as more people have come forward to make claims against him. Bianchi, who has several past arrests and convictions for drug charges and assault, has denied those allegations in multiple interviews with The Denver Post. His past convictions and arrests were not mentioned on Tuesday.
The trial, which could potentially last through mid-November, began Friday with a jury and evidence review that ran through Monday. On Tuesday, the first witnesses were called: a pair of police detectives and a former nurse from Denver Health who conducted a sexual-assault examination of Utter after she reported it on Nov. 1, 2020.
Bianchi’s defense team on Tuesday vigorously maintained his innocence. In her opening statements, deputy state public defender Megan Jungsun Lee previewed a strategy that will cast the prosecutor’s witnesses and experts as tainted by misinformation and rumors on social media, as well as news reports in The Denver Post and Westword.
“You will hear that during this time … that gossip, speculation assumptions were repeated again and again,” Lee said during opening statements. She also cast doubt on the years-long, on-and-off Denver Police Department investigation into the assaults, which she said had been compromised by the gossip-driven narrative and by news reports.
“Ms. Utter was alert,” Lee said of the events before the alleged assault on Nov. 1, 2020, noting that defense witnesses saw Bianchi and Utter “cuddled up.” The pair was laughing and holding hands as they went downstairs to the basement at Sancho’s that night, Lee said.
That’s where Utter said the assault took place. However, there was no evidence she was unable to make her own choices despite consuming alcohol, cocaine and cannabis that night, Lee said.
“(Bianchi) did not hand her a drink, touch her drink, offer her food or offer her drugs,” Lee added. “There is no evidence he caused her any kind of fear or made any threat. She was fully capable of exercising her own free will.”
The District Attorney’s Office spent much of Tuesday afternoon establishing the physical layout of So Many Roads with dozens of on-site photos, which included an unidentified substance in a baggie in Bianchi’s office, where Heringer’s assault allegedly took place.
In March 2024, a woman alleged she was raped by Bianchi, also at So Many Roads Brewery, which was co-owned by Tyler Bishop. That bar closed the next month, having been the subject of Denver Police Department stings for underage drinking and drug sales. Bianchi had also been the subject of protests outside the brewery in June 2021, after Utter and Heringer came forward to discuss their experiences, first on social media and later with The Denver Post. Local musicians who felt they had been mistreated by Bianchi rallied during the protest.
“We will sit here as long as it takes,” Curtis said, noting that the DA’s office will call a mix of eyewitnesses, detectives and experts who can comment on toxicology and crime lab results, sexual assault, consent, how memory works, and various firsthand details of the investigation.
Bianchi has been a fixture of Colorado’s jam-band scene for more than two decades, previously owning and booking bands at “Don Quixote”-inspired venues including Quixote’s True Blue, Dulcinea’s 100th Monkey, Be on Key Psychedelic Ripple, and Cervantes’ Masterpiece Ballroom.
Tragically, in 2019, my fiancée took her own life. What began as one of the most heartbreaking, devastating experiences of my life, turned into an unending nightmare. The police arrested me after I called 911 because they believed we had been arguing. But then, with scant investigation, prosecutors immediately charged me with murder and imprisoned me for 72 days without bail.
A jury eventually found me not guilty, but only after my attorney learned a prosecutor purposefully withheld evidence exonerating me. That may be unimaginable in America — but it happened to me. And when it did, I learned the hard truth: prosecutors (unlike almost any other lawyer or professional) enjoy absolute immunity, meaning both the wrongly accused and victims of crime have no recourse, and prosecutors cannot be sued for the damage they cause.
I learned firsthand that when attorneys fail to fulfill their oaths of office, just like a doctor or police officer, the consequences can be dire – even life-ending. This becomes even more egregious when that failure is purposeful, yet not all attorneys are held equal under the law.
I was wrongly incarcerated and prosecuted, even though the forensic pathologist refused to rule my fiance’s death a homicide. Only weeks after my arrest — while I remained behind bars — Denver’s own chief deputy crime lab director and the lead Denver homicide detective advised the prosecutor of their opinions that the death was not a homicide, but a suicide. Even though the prosecutor knew this critical information that would have exonerated me, the prosecutor purposefully withheld this information from myself and my defense team for nearly 8 months. I was eventually acquitted only after these opinions were forcibly revealed in response to a court order.
Who was that prosecutor? Chief Deputy Dan Cohen from the Denver District Attorney’s office. The judge, clearly outraged, issued a sanction allowing my lawyer to cross-examine the witnesses about their favorable opinions — but otherwise faced no consequences. His law license remained intact, and his boss excused the behavior.
Imagine my outrage and disappointment when I read a recent Denver Post article covering judges dismissing other cases in which Chief Deputy Daniel Cohen failed to disclose critical and favorable evidence to the accused. In the most recent case, this was again not a clerical oversight or an isolated misstep. In fact, the judge in the case ruled, “At this point in time, I can’t find that it’s anything other than willful given the number of times this issue has been addressed with this particular counsel.” The Post article pointed out that there have been at least seven other discovery violations committed by the Denver District Attorney’s Office since February of 2025.
These are real Coloradan’s lives on the line. Yet the wrongly accused, like myself, have no recourse to hold prosecutors accountable.
This story shows that even when judges grow frustrated with prosecutors’ misconduct, their tools are limited. They can allow broader cross-examination or dismiss a case — but they cannot punish the prosecutor. The repeated violations we see prove that these sanctions, while appropriate, do little to deter misconduct. And with Mr. Cohen still abusing his power five years after egregiously breaking the rules in my case, it’s clear the Denver District Attorney’s office isn’t imposing serious discipline either.
Prosecutors are the most powerful lawyers in America. They decide who to criminally charge, when and what crimes to allege, whether to offer leniency, what evidence to turn over and what sentence to pursue. As I now personally understand, they have an immense amount of power to impact the lives and families of both the guilty and the innocent.
Given this power, you’d expect prosecutors to be held to higher standards of accountability. Instead, the opposite is true. Misconduct is brushed off as business as usual, denied and excused at every turn, and much of it never comes to light. Even when caught red-handed, prosecutors keep their jobs and their law licenses, shielded from any liability for damage they cause. In any other profession, mine included as an architect, such deliberate abuses would end a career.
Cohen, like other prosecutors who commit intentional misconduct are shielded – entirely. Like in Cohen’s case, they rarely face employment or bar discipline, and they also can’t be sued for the deliberate harm they cause. I eventually went with my only recourse and filed a lawsuit against the City of Denver and the police force because, unlike prosecutors, they don’t have unlimited immunity. A judge unfortunately dismissed the case, because ultimately it was the (immune) prosecutor, and not the detective, who could be held to answer to a jury for the alleged malicious prosecution and for the willful failure to disclose the favorable evidence.
Many prosecutors do act with integrity. But as this story makes clear, absolute immunity has bred a culture of impunity that leaves them above the very law they’re meant to enforce. But no one should be above the law.
When prosecutors break the rules, justice breaks down. People like myself suffer a potential wrongful conviction. Our careers and families are destroyed, our reputations are ruined, and we suffer crushing financial loss. At the same time victims of crime are denied justice and finality. The result is a system the public can’t trust. If Colorado is serious about restoring trust and protecting the rights of every Coloradan, it must reform the law so prosecutors can finally be held accountable.
Micah Kimball is a licensed architect and general contractor who designs and builds thoughtful spaces. After a prosecution that derailed his career and life, he now works with Protect Ethical Prosecutors to promote fairness and reform.
A Denver jury on Friday convicted a 33-year-old man of first-degree murder in two shootings on the South Platte River Trail in September 2023, according to the district attorney’s office.
Tanner Ray Fielder was arrested after police connected him to two separate shootings along the bike path that killed Lluvia Robles-Banuelos, 31, and Jeremy Hutcheson, 43.
On Dec. 15, Fielder will be sentenced to life in prison without the possibility of parole, the mandatory sentence for first-degree murder in Colorado.
He was represented by the state public defender’s office, which does not comment on criminal cases.
The Denver District Attorney’s Office failed to share police records with defense attorneys in as many as 756 criminal cases since 2022, potentially violating court discovery rules, a probe by the office found.
The prosecutors’ discovery software for years diverted Denver Police Department files that included a forward slash in the file name into an “error log that prosecutors were not aware of and could not access,” according to a statement from the office this week and notifications sent to defense attorneys in September.
The misrouted files were not shared with defendants — a potential violation of discovery rules, which require prosecutors to disclose evidence to defendants during a criminal case. The district attorney’s office uncovered what it called a “technical issue” with the software as it reviewed its own practices amid mounting serious sanctions for discovery violations across Colorado.
It was not immediately clear whether all of the files that were diverted into the error log were required to be disclosed to defendants, DA spokesman Matt Jablow said in a statement. But the office nevertheless notified defense attorneys and started the process of sharing all the files “out of caution and to avoid any delay,” he said.
“The DA’s office produced the files, even though, in many of those cases… the information appears to have been produced in a different format, may not have been legally required to be produced, or both,” he said in the statement.
Many of the misplaced files “contained information related to a defendant’s arrest, such as booking photos,” Jablow said. The error log issue most frequently impacted records that included dates in the file names, according to the notification sent to attorneys.
The impact of the technical glitch will vary from case to case depending on the severity of the case, the information in the undisclosed files and how far along in the legal process the case is, said Colin McCallin, a criminal defense attorney and former prosecutor.
Little is likely to change for defendants who have already pleaded guilty and served their sentences in less serious cases, like misdemeanors and petty offenses, he said. But there could be a bigger impact in ongoing prosecutions or more serious cases.
“Obviously, if the evidence is exculpatory, if it suggests the person didn’t commit the crime, that is a big deal; that can lead to serious sanctions,” McCallin said. “…If it is a minor violation, like, ‘Oh, we didn’t get the person’s full criminal history or mugshot’ — that’s probably not going to be a big deal. I would imagine in most lower-level felony cases or misdemeanor cases, I don’t know if anything will happen at all. A lot of those folks will have moved on.”
If the undisclosed material includes exculpatory evidence, it could prompt judges to dismiss cases or defendants to seek post-conviction relief, he added. Judges in ongoing cases might also consider sanctions against prosecutors for the discovery violations alone, regardless of what type of evidence was not disclosed, McCallin said.
“It really does sound like this was a computer issue; it’s not like the DA’s office was sitting on evidence intentionally or purposely withholding evidence,” he said. “I don’t think anyone thinks that. But the problem is, it is still a discovery violation.”
Angela Campbell, co-chair of the Denver chapter of the Colorado Criminal Defense Bar, said the district attorney’s public statements about the software issue have inappropriately minimized the potential impact of the discovery violations.
“The Denver DA’s statement is concerning because it seems to fail to take accountability for the serious discovery violations committed by their office,” she said, adding that defense attorneys are just starting to investigate the missing files and it is too early to know the full impact of the misrouted records.
“Nobody is saying that every single discovery violation was tantamount to a Brady violation — a failure to produce exculpatory evidence — but minimizing the discovery violations that occurred, first of all by saying, ‘Well, it was over 756 cases’ — they’re not just cases. These are 756 human beings,” she said. “People, presumably, who went to prison and endured serious consequences for what may or may not have been material discovery violations that would have impacted the cases. The truth is, right now, that I don’t think we know. And I don’t think they know.”
In a statement, Denver District Attorney John Walsh said prosecutors took “rapid steps” to fix the discovery issue as soon as they recognized it.
“The Denver DA’s Office is fully committed to providing complete discovery to the defense in every case and understands its responsibility to ensure that software issues of this kind do not arise,” he said in the statement.
Campbell questioned why it took prosecutors three years to find the software issue, and compared the situation to the case of now-fired Colorado Bureau of Investigation scientist Yvonne “Missy” Woods, who is accused of mishandling DNA testing in more than 1,000 criminal cases during her 29-year career.
“This is the concern that every criminal defense attorney has, which is, is this going to be another Missy Woods debacle where we don’t know the extent?” she said. “And that’s the problem. When you undermine trust in a public institution, it’s really hard to get back. And that’s why accountability is so important.”
A man accused of forcing women into prostitution in Denver took a plea deal and will spend nearly two decades in prison, according to court records.
Stefon Flowers coerced at least four women into prostitution for his financial gain over the course of three months in 2023, according to a news release from the Denver District Attorney’s Office.
He forced the women to take photos that he used for sexual advertisements online and, as buyers responded, would set up the date, according to the release. He then would take the women to the date and wait in the car while it happened.
“Flowers removed any control that the women had by threatening them if they did not behave as he instructed,” Denver District Attorney officials stated in the release. “After the dates, Flowers required the women to give him at least part of the money that they had made.”
Flowers took a deal and pleaded guilty to two counts of pimping in August, a felony, according to court records. That deal dropped three charges of human trafficking and five additional counts of pimping from his case.
One of the victims described Flowers’s operation as a “full-blown prostitution ring,” and said multiple women were living in his apartment who were not allowed to leave without Flowers, according to his arrest affidavit.
She told investigators that she tried to leave multiple times, but she didn’t make it out of the parking lot before Flowers caught up and dragged her back inside his apartment, according to the affidavit.
“Stefon Flowers preyed upon vulnerable women to satisfy his own greed,” Denver District Attorney John Walsh said in a statement. “As his sentence shows, if you engage in human trafficking in Denver, you will be caught and prosecuted, and pay a heavy price under the law.”
Pa Reh, 21, will spend the rest of his life in the Colorado Department of Corrections without the possibility of parole, the mandatory sentence after he was convicted of first-degree murder by a Denver jury in July.
Kaing, 42, was unloading dessert from her car outside her family’s apartment building when Reh and three others began shooting at a passing car driven by people they had a dispute with.
She died at the scene in her son’s arms.
Kaing’s family, friends and community have described her as a vital part of the East Colfax neighborhood, where she served on the neighborhood association’s board of directors, volunteered at a nearby food bank and was quick to help anyone in need.
Kaing and her family had opened Taw Win Thai and Burmese Restaurant just six months before her death.
“Her murder was an unspeakable tragedy for her family, for her immigrant community and, frankly, for all of us in Denver,” Denver District Attorney John Walsh said in a statement Friday. “…That sentence cannot bring Ma Kaing back, but it can send the powerful message that violence will not be tolerated in Denver.”
A second man charged with first-degree murder in Kaing’s shooting, Lu Reh, was convicted and sentenced to life in prison in May. Two others, Nu La and Swa Bay, pleaded guilty to second-degree murder in July and have sentencing hearings set for September.
Denver authorities have charged a California man with distributing fentanyl that resulted in the death of a Colorado resident.
The Denver District Attorney’s Office alleged in a news release Friday that Jamal Gamal bore responsibility for the death of Denver resident Collin Walker by selling the 28-year-old fentanyl in November 2023 that led to his death.
After Walker died, Denver police set up a sting operation. Authorities said they were able to purchase more than 14 grams of fentanyl from Gamal, who mailed undercover detectives the drug from California.
According to KDVR TV in Denver, distribution of fentanyl resulting in death is a charge first created in Colorado in 2022 and the local district attorney has made a push to prosecute drug dealers.
“Collin Walker’s death is yet another tragic example of the devastation that fentanyl continues to cause in our community,” Denver Dist. Atty. Beth McCann said in a statement. “The charges against Mr. Gamal should send the message that people who are accused of selling this poison in Denver will be prosecuted by my office to the fullest extent of the law.”
According to the district attorney’s office, Gamal was arrested in San Francisco in late August and is expected in Denver next week.
Lumumba Sayers, 46, is charged with first-degree murder and two counts of felony menacing in the Saturday shooting death of Malcolm Watson near Paradice Island Pool at Pioneer Park.
He appeared in Adams County District Court on Thursday, where a judge increased his bail from $1 million to $5 million.
According to an arrest affidavit and witness statements made in court Thursday, Watson was carrying party supplies for his son’s birthday at the pool at 5951 Monaco St. when Sayers walked up to him and shot him multiple times, including once in the head.
After shooting Watson, Sayers went to talk with a man and a woman in a black Cadillac Escalade parked nearby before returning to Watson’s body, taking his keys and trying to place a handgun under his body, according to the affidavit.
Commerce City police officers arrived on scene to find Sayers crouching over Watson before he started to walk toward the Escalade, according to the affidavit.
Officers arrested him after witnesses began yelling that he was the shooter. Watson was pronounced dead at the scene.
Witnesses told detectives they believed the shooting was retaliation or revenge for the death of Sayers’ son, 23-year-old Lumumba Sayers Jr., who was killed almost a year ago in a shooting involving one of Watson’s friends, according to the affidavit.
In response to an inquiry about Braxton’s case, the Denver District Attorney’s Office stated “no such records exist,” which is the only response prosecutors can provide under Colorado law when a case has been sealed.
Braxton is on trial in federal court in Denver this week for a weapons charge related to the August 2023 shooting, according to court records.
He was indicted by a grand jury in January on one count of possession of ammunition by a prohibited person, court records show.
The trial is scheduled to wrap up this week, court officials said Thursday.
The center, which described the elder Sayers as a founder in social media posts, is “a safe place where youth and adults are provided with basic needs, educational and career support, health resources, recreational and outreach services to assist with creating jobs and a building a sustainable life,” according to a description on its Facebook page.
Defense attorneys argued Sayers was an “exceptional” man and defended his character and position in the community during Thursday’s hearing, while prosecutors argued he was a danger to the community and Watson’s family as well as a flight risk.
Adams County District Court Judge Jeffrey Ruff ordered a $5 million cash-only bail, calling it the “only bond acceptable” in the case.
Sayers’ next court date was not available Thursday.
DENVER — The fiancée of a man who was killed in a road rage incident on Interstate 70 in July 2022 said she is happy with the 22-year sentence that was handed down to the shooter Tuesday.
Tamra Holton said she misses the little things from her time with Kevin Piaskowski.
“It’s just the day-to-day things — coffee and breakfast and movies and walks,” Holton said. “We had gotten engaged a month-and-a-half before he was killed. So we, you know, we were best friends.”
Piaskowski was on his way home when he was killed during a road rage incident at I-70 and North Quebec Street on July 31, 2022. Prosecutors said the shooter — Jameel James — was driving a stolen vehicle at the time of the incident.
James, now 18, pleaded guilty in September 2023 to second-degree murder in connection to Piaskowski’s death. He was 17 years old at the time of the shooting. He was sentenced on Tuesday to 22 years in prison.
Holton said the family was hoping for the best but preparing for the worst.
“Given, like, history and, like, statistics and how juveniles are treated in the system, it’s very unlikely to get anything,” she said. “I think we all went into it expecting the worst, which would have been seven years in a youth facility center. So when we heard 22 years, we were all pretty relieved.”
In a statement, Denver District Attorney Beth McCann said Tuesday that James was “old enough to know what he was doing and must be held accountable.”
“This was a senseless and completely unprovoked murder on one of Denver’s major highways. Mr. Piaskowski was simply driving his car when he was shot and killed by Jameel James,” said DA McCann, “Although Mr. James was young at the time, he was old enough to know what he was doing and must be held accountable for this tragic event. We agree with the judge’s sentence and hope that it sends a message to young people in Denver that the use of guns to cause injury and death will not be tolerated.”
Holton said it’s important that she continues speaking out.
“I think there’s a lot of shootings that have taken place that are with youth and underage people that are, you know, if we would have gotten to trial, he could have walked free depending on how that went,” said Holton, “I just think it’s time for them to start making a change, you know, the justice system and treating them more like adults.”
Although no amount of jail time can bring Kevin back, the fiancée hopes this can help spark a change.
“There’s like no justice that will feel that’s ever served. But given the circumstances and entering a plea deal with him guaranteeing time instead of going to trial, we all felt that it was almost closest to the max of the sentencing he could have,” said Holton.
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Disbarred Denver attorney Steven Bachar died Friday at the Rifle Correctional Center, where he was serving a three-year sentence for defrauding an investor of $125,000.
Bachar, 58, apparently had a medical event and became unresponsive, according to the Garfield County Coroner’s Office.
First aid and CPR were given and emergency medical responders arrived at the scene, but Bachar died at the prison. The coroner’s office was called to the prison Friday morning.
Bachar’s cause and manner of death are still pending, but it appears to be “most consistent with a natural death,” Garfield County Coroner Robert Glassmire said in a statement.
The Department of Corrections confirmed Bachar’s death on Friday but declined to release further information, stating his death was under investigation, “as is the normal course of action,” spokesperson Alondra Gonzalez said in an email.
Bachar had ongoing health problems, he told a Denver District Court judge during his sentencing hearing in November.
“As your honor knows, I have some significant health issues that focus me on the need to live a good honest life going forward,” Bachar said during the November hearing.
Before moving to Colorado in 2015, Bachar was an Army reservist, graduated from Georgetown University Law Center and worked in the U.S. Treasury Department and the White House under President Bill Clinton, according to his LinkedIn and previous reporting.
He also worked with Sen. John Hickenlooper, serving as counsel for Hickenlooper’s campaign for Denver mayor and on his transition team before moving to Denver to join the law firm Moye White’s business section.
He left the firm in August 2017, according to previous reporting.
Bachar was then charged with three counts of theft and one count of fraud in June 2022 for defrauding an investor of $125,000 in December 2017, according to court records. He was also disbarred in June 2022.
According to the Denver District Attorney’s Office, Bachar misrepresented and omitted information in order to secure $125,000 in funding from an investor for his firm, Empowerment Capital. Bachar never invested or repaid the money, instead spending most of it for personal use.
While prosecutors asked for two years of prison during Bachar’s November sentencing, Johnson sentenced him to 3 years in prison, stating during the hearing that he wanted to push back on the criminal justice system’s tendency to be more lenient on wealthy, well-connected and well-educated defendants.
Denver police allege the boy shot and killed Richard Sanchez on a bus near South Federal Boulevard and West Mississippi Avenue on the evening of Jan. 27 because Sanchez’s leg was blocking the aisle.
Sanchez was pronounced dead at a local hospital due to multiple gunshot wounds. A second person on the bus was also injured but was not taken to the hospital.
The boy was arrested on Feb. 1 and is facing 14 charges including first-degree murder, Denver District Attorney’s Office spokesperson Maro Casparian said Wednesday.
Prosecutors consider many factors when deciding whether to pursue trying a juvenile as an adult, according to a statement from the district attorney’s office.
Those include the circumstances of the crime, the suspect’s age, what contact they’ve had with the juvenile system, their upbringing and background, provisions of the law and the perspective of the victim or victim’s family.
“We balance the need for punishment with the opportunity to rehabilitate the juvenile. We are now in the process of making the decision in the case of the 13-year-old,” the DA’s office said in a statement.
A preliminary hearing in the case is set for March 8.
A cyberattack on the Office of Colorado State Public Defender has forced the office to shut down its computer network, locking public defenders across the state out of critical work systems.
Colorado public defenders do not have access to their work computers, are unable to access court dockets or court filings and can’t do any significant work for clients in court, according to internal emails reviewed by The Denver Post.
Office spokesman James Karbach confirmed the breach in a statement Monday, saying officials “recently became aware that some data within our computer system was encrypted by malware.”
Karbach did not say how long the public defender’s office expects to be shut down or when the attack happened, but emails sent to public defenders indicate the statewide office is effectively “non-operational” and the outage could last as long as a week.
The “cyber security incident” was underway by about 11 a.m. Friday, according to an emailed notice sent from the Colorado Judicial Department’s Information and Technology Service’s to judges and judicial personnel. The notice indicates that the cyberattack does not pose a threat to the wider court system.
“As a preventative measure, we temporarily disabled our computer network and are working to safely and securely bring systems back online,” Karbach said. “Our operations will be limited while the network is offline.”
