Former Jeffco high school psychologist James Michael Chevrier was convicted Monday of five charges, including sexual assault on a child, according to the Colorado First Judicial District Attorney’s Office.
He was acquitted on two other charges.
Chevrier, 39, was found guilty of sexual assault on a child by one in a position of trust, unlawful possession of a controlled substance, possession with intent to distribute a controlled substance involving ketamine ,contributing to the delinquency of a minor involving alcohol and contributing to the delinquency of a minor involving marijuana.
He was found not guilty of soliciting for child prostitution and attempted sexual assault on a child by one in a position of trust.
The jury began deliberating late Jan. 9 after a five-day trial. Deliberations resumed on Monday morning, and the jury reached a verdict after noon.
Chevrier had been out on bond and living out of state while the case was pending. He was remanded into custody following the verdict.
He is scheduled to be sentenced at 8:30 a.m. April 2.
Chevrier was tried for crimes police said happened while he was employed as a staff psychologist at Green Mountain High School and Bear Creek High School. The charges involved three students, as well as separate drug-related offenses.
The Lakewood Police Department arrested Chevrier last year in May after the school district received a Safe2Tell report that a Green Mountain school psychologist had sexually assaulted a female student.
The Colorado First Judicial District Attorney’s Office said it will not comment further on this case until after the sentencing hearing.
A cash-strapped school district that’s looking to unload a shuttered elementary school.
A nonprofit human services agency that’s in need of a bigger home as it serves more than 60,000 households a year.
And a judge who’s telling Colorado’s fifth-largest city not to make any moves on the whole situation — a complex deal that would allow the agency to move into the school — until she can determine whether everything is on the up and up.
That’s the strange nexus at which Lakewood, Jeffco Public Schools and The Action Center have found themselves after their proposed real estate deal was challenged in court by a former Lakewood city councilwoman who thinks the whole arrangement is “taking place in secret.”
“Government should have to do this in a way that’s transparent and above board — and includes the public in this kind of decision-making,” said Anita Springsteen, who’s also an attorney. “I think it’s unethical. I think it’s wrong.”
The deal on the table calls for Lakewood to purchase Emory Elementary — which closed three years ago because of declining enrollment — from Jeffco Public Schools for $4 million. At the same time, the city would buy The Action Center’s existing facility on West 14th Avenue for $4 million.
The Action Center, in turn, would buy Emory from the city for $1 million when the organization, which for more than a half-century has provided free clothing and food, family services and financial assistance to those in need, moves to its new home in the former school on South Teller Street.
The core problem, Springsteen says, is that Lakewood did not properly announce two September 2024 executive sessions during which officials discussed details of the deal in private. In a lawsuit, she accused the city of violating Colorado’s open meetings law, which requires governments to state, in advance and “in as much detail as possible,” what will be discussed behind closed doors “without compromising the purpose for the executive session.”
Jefferson County District Judge Meegan Miloud had enough questions last week about how Lakewood gave public notice of its executive sessions that she imposed a temporary restraining order on the City Council — forbidding it from voting on three ordinances that would authorize the deal to move forward.
The council had been scheduled to consider the measures Monday night.
Miloud said the city’s executive session notices on the council’s September 2024 agendas were “so vague that the public has no way of identifying or discerning what is being negotiated or what property is being assessed.”
On Tuesday morning, the judge conducted a hearing on the matter but did not make a ruling. She called another hearing for next Monday and said in a new order that her injunction remains in effect.
The fast-moving situation has Lakewood playing defense. A special council meeting that had been set for Wednesday night — to once again put the ordinances up for a council vote — will now have to be rescheduled, city spokeswoman Stacie Oulton said.
Lakewood, she contended, has been open throughout the process.
“The public process has included updates from the city manager during public City Council meetings, and the city has followed the public notification process for these agenda items,” she told The Denver Post in an email this week. “Additionally, the proposed end user of the property, the Action Center, has had several public community meetings about its proposal.”
Anita Springsteen, a lawyer and former Lakewood city councilwoman, is leading a challenge to a complex land deal between the City of Lakewood, Jeffco Public Schools and The Action Center that would bring the humans services nonprofit to the former Emory Elementary School in Lakewood on Oct. 28, 2025. She posed for a portrait outside the former school. (Photo by RJ Sangosti/The Denver Post)
Questions about meetings, market value
Jeff Roberts, the executive director of the Colorado Freedom of Information Coalition, said it was “unusual” for a judge, via a temporary restraining order, to preempt a city council from casting a vote.
But case law, he said, makes it clear that governing bodies in Colorado must provide as much detail as possible when they announce closed-door sessions — short of disclosing or jeopardizing strategies and positions that are crucial in real estate negotiations.
“In general, an announcement that doesn’t give any indication of the topic is not enough information for the public,” Roberts said. “In most cases — and that’s why it’s in the law — you must tell the public what the executive session is about.”
That standard, he said, was upheld by the Colorado Court of Appeals in 2020, when it ruled that the Basalt Town Council violated the state’s open meetings law several times in 2016 by not properly announcing the topic of private deliberations it would be having regarding a former town manager.
In the Lakewood school matter, the alleged open meetings violations are not the only thing that bothers Springsteen. She objects to the structure of the proposed real estate transaction, saying it would be a sweetheart deal for The Action Center and a waste of money for taxpayers.
“They are stealing money out of our pockets,” said Springsteen, who served on City Council from 2019 to 2023.
Lakewood, she said, would be underpaying for the 17-acre Emory Elementary School parcel, overpaying for The Action Center’s current facility and basically giving the school property away to the nonprofit.
“For the city to not intend to own the property, but to buy it on behalf of a nongovernmental organization — when did we become an agent for other agencies?” Springsteen said.
According to the Jefferson County assessor’s site, The Action Center’s buildings on West 14th Avenue have a total value of about $2 million, while the city has proposed purchasing them for double that. The assessor’s office lists Emory Elementary as having a total value of up to $12 million.
Springsteen said she is flummoxed by the Jeffco school district’s willingness to sell the elementary school to Lakewood for a third of that valuation.
“What bothers me most is the way Jeffco schools is handling this,” she said. “The district didn’t even have a school resource officer at Evergreen High School because of budgetary issues.”
A spokesperson for Jeffco schools said a decision on whether to sell Emory Elementary to Lakewood hadn’t been made yet. That vote, by the district’s school board, is expected Nov. 13.
Raven Price picks out food at The Action Center’s food bank in Lakewood on Oct. 28, 2025. (Photo by RJ Sangosti/The Denver Post)
‘We need to bring this into our community’
Pam Brier, the CEO of The Action Center, said property values don’t tell the full story.
“There are many instances locally and nationally of municipalities helping to support the affordable acquisition of properties for organizations like The Action Center — who are serving such a critical need in our community,” she said, “and ultimately saving taxpayer money by helping to meet people’s basic needs.”
On Wednesday, she provided The Denver Post a May 2024 appraisal done by Centennial-based Masters Valuation Services that valued the organization’s current facility — made up of a 14,960-square-foot building and a 15,540-square-foot building — at $4 million.
Her organization, Brier said, serves 300 households a day. It provides a free grocery and clothing market, financial assistance, free meals, family coaching, skills classes and workforce support to people who are down on their luck.
“As public dollars dwindle, our work is more important than ever,” she said. “Without organizations like The Action Center to provide food, clothing and other critical support, individuals and families fall into crisis, needing assistance that will cost taxpayers and cities so much more.”
Oulton, the Lakewood city spokeswoman, said it was not unusual for cities and counties across metro Denver to “provide financial support in a variety of ways to nonprofits that serve their communities.”
“Additionally, Jeffco Public Schools has clearly communicated to the city that the district views the value of this project in more than the dollars involved, because the district’s priority has been to see former schools used in a way that will continue providing services and support to Jeffco Public Schools students and their families,” Oulton said.
Diana Losacco, a 48-year resident of Lakewood who lives about a mile from the Emory site, was one of more than three dozen people who urged the city to pursue the purchase and sale of the school to The Action Center on the Lakewood Speaks website.
Raven Price and her 4-year-old son, Gabriel Luna, head home with a wagon full of food they selected from The Action Center’s food bank in Lakewood on Oct. 28, 2025. (Photo by RJ Sangosti/The Denver Post)
“This will provide opportunities to people to become self-sufficient, which will provide significant financial savings for our community,” Losacco told The Post in an interview. “We need to bring this into our community. It needs to be in a neighborhood.”
But not her neighborhood, said Katherine Byrne. Byrne has owned Stockton Pet Hospital on South Wadsworth Boulevard for six years. The business, which was founded in 1964, sits just a few hundred feet west of Emory Elementary.
There are enough challenges with assaults, shots fired and drug dealing in the vicinity, especially along the nearby bike path, Byrne said. Because The Action Center won’t be providing overnight shelter space at its new location for people who are homeless, she worries about where people using the organization’s services might go once the doors close.
And she wonders why the city didn’t look at wealthier areas of Lakewood for potential sites to relocate The Action Center.
“It’s just a ridiculous, unsavory plan to put this center in the middle of a neighborhood that didn’t know it was coming,” Byrne said.
At a Tuesday night meeting of the Evergreen High School Parent Teacher Student Association, a parent questioned why Evergreen High didn’t have a new school resource officer to replace its previous officer, who had been away on medical leave for nearly a year. The school’s principal explained that Jeffco Public Schools had “deprioritized” SROs for its mountain schools, which would share officers between them, said Cindy Mazeika, the PTSA’s president.
One parent asked explicitly what would happen if there were a shooting at the school.
“We as parents didn’t know about this until somebody asked about it on the open floor at the end of the PTA meeting on Tuesday night,” Mazieka said.
Jacki Kelley, spokeswoman for the Jefferson County Sheriff’s Office, told reporters Thursday that a school resource officer was not at the school when 16-year-old Desmond Holly started firing his gun, critically wounding two students before he fatally shot himself. Deputies arrived on the scene minutes after the shooting began, Kelley said.
The school’s full-time deputy was on medical leave, Kelley said, and the gap has been filled by several part-time officers. The deputy assigned to the school that morning was dispatched to a nearby accident, which Kelley said was routine and did not violate departmental policy.
In an email Friday, spokespeople for the school district did not directly respond to questions about the parent groups’ concerns. The district wrote that an SRO was assigned to the high school, but it directed other questions to the sheriff’s office, including how assignment decisions are made.
Spokespeople for the sheriff’s office did not immediately respond to an email seeking comment Friday afternoon.
In the district’s contract with the Jefferson County Sheriff’s Office, the agency agreed to provide school resource officers to a dozen county schools, including Evergreen High, “as staffing allows.” The district has contracts with various cities to provide SROs at its other schools.
The parents’ concerns come as the district adjusts to directly paying for the officers. In April, the district learned that it would have to begin paying for 50% of the cost for the officers during the 2025-2026 school year, according to an April budget presentation. That meant an additional $2.2 million in district funding, which was provided in the budget.
In its statement, the district said its SRO program “is a point of pride for our district, and we remain committed to sustaining it.” In survey data presented to the Jeffco school board in June, a majority of families, staff and students reported feeling safe at the district’s schools.
On Wednesday morning, shortly before the shooting began at the high school, Evergreen Middle School parents also raised concerns about SRO staffing, said Sarah Aller, the head of that school’s PTA. In lieu of an SRO, staff at the middle school purchased new walkie-talkies for school personnel to communicate, Aller said. The PTA used $12,000 of its own funds to cover the purchase.
Madison Mihalik, a senior at Evergreen High, said she emailed the district’s superintendent in September 2024 after at least one empty shell casing was found in a school stairwell. In her 2024 email, which she provided to The Post, she wrote that the school had been targeted by a threat the day before the bullet was found and that she felt unsafe
The district and the sheriff’s office did not respond to questions about the bullet incident, which both Mazieka and Aller also recalled.
Mihalik said the school typically had an SRO present during her freshman year, but that changed during her sophomore year. In a new email she sent to district officials hours after the shooting, she said she and her classmates “rarely have a resource officer at our school.”
“Do we not deserve to go to school feeling safe?” she wrote.
EVERGREEN, Colo. — Jeffco Public Schools has canceled Thursday classes for schools in the Evergreen and Conifer area following a shooting at Evergreen High School.
A male student opened fire at the school around 12:24 p.m. Wednesday, wounding two of his peers before turning the gun on himself. The suspect later died from his injuries.
All three juveniles were transported to CommonSpirit St. Anthony Health Center, where one victim remains in critical condition. The second victim suffered non-life-threatening injuries and was listed in stable condition, according to Dr. Brian Blackwood, head of the trauma unit at the Lakewood hospital.
In an update Wednesday night, hospital officials told Denver7 that the second victim is now “fair” and had been transferred out of the hospital to a different facility.
In light of Wednesday’s shooting, Jeffco Public Schools has canceled Thursday classes for all schools in the Evergreen and Conifer articulation area. Plans for Friday classes will be released on Thursday, according to the district.
Classes have been canceled at Evergreen High School for the remainder of the week.
In a letter to the community, Superintendent Tracy Dorland said her district will “continue to do everything in our power to ensure our schools are safe places where students can learn, grow, and thrive, free from fear.”
Read her full letter below:
“Earlier today, violence touched our Jeffco community when three Evergreen High School students were involved in a shooting—one as the assailant and two victims. I am devastated to share this news with you, and I am also angry. No child should ever face this kind of danger, and no community should be asked to absorb this kind of pain.
As Jeffco Superintendent, I am heartbroken. And I am resolute. Jeffco Public Schools will continue to do everything in our power to ensure our schools are safe places where students can learn, grow, and thrive, free from fear. But we cannot do it alone. Safety requires vigilance, partnership, and the unflinching belief that our children deserve better.
We cannot pretend this is just another tragic incident. The pain of this incident reopens old wounds. I know there are many in our Jeffco community hurting and grieving tonight, in Evergreen and beyond. The urgency this moment demands is undeniable. Student safety is not an abstract issue for us in Jeffco. It is the most important responsibility we hold. Safety is our number one priority every day, and yet, here we are once again, grieving with a community over gun violence impacting our students.
I am grateful for the swift response of the Jefferson County Sheriff’s Office (JCSO) and other local law enforcement agencies, who continue to lead this investigation. I am proud of the tireless work of our own Jeffco Department of School Safety teammates who remain vigilant, prepared and deeply committed to protecting our students. I want to thank our committed and dedicated school leaders, educators and staff members, who hold safety as their top priority. And, much gratitude to our Board of Education and the many elected officials at every level, including Governor Polis, who have reached out to support us in this moment.
And yet, we all know expressions of support, condolences, and gratitude are not enough, especially for those whose loved ones are impacted. Tools like Safe2Tell are essential and invaluable to us in keeping our students safe. We will continue to advocate for every single tool available to keep our students safe. The nation is tired of statements filled with platitudes and “thoughts and prayers.” What we need is courage. What we need is the collective will of our entire community. Violence involving our young people should never be normalized, and we must face the difficult truth that too often, it is.
To the students, families and staff of Evergreen High School – those most impacted today – we stand with you. To the broader Jeffco community: we must act with urgency and unity to make sure that the violence we witnessed today does not define tomorrow. Our children deserve nothing less.
I know there are a lot of questions. We will continue to work and collaborate with JCSO as they conduct their investigation. Jeffco will continue to communicate with the Evergreen community and will share available supports and resources with all Jeffco families.
We are committed to caring for our community during this time of tragedy.”
Dorland also delivered a message to the media in the hours after the shooting. You can watch that statement in the video player below:
Jeffco Schools superintendent issues statement after shooting at Evergreen High School
Resources for the community
The Jefferson County Sheriff’s Office Victim Services Unit will operate a resource and information center at Bergen Meadow Elementary School on Thursday and Friday.
Victim advocates, mental health professionals, victim compensation representatives and school personnel will be at the center from 9 a.m. to 5 p.m. on Thursday and 9 a.m. to 1 p.m. on Friday. The center is open to all students, faculty, family and community members, according to the sheriff’s office.
Information about retrieving vehicles and personal items from Evergreen HS will be available at the center. Students and staff who witnessed the shooting and have not yet spoken with an investigator are asked to come to the center to do so.
Denver7 will continue following this incident. You can visit denver7.com for the latest information. To read our previous coverage, visit the articles below:
