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Assault Charge Against Eagle-Vail Teacher Dismissed EAGLE, Colorado — Prosecutors dismissed an assault charge against a local high school teacher Wednesday, authorities said. Lewis H. Stahl, 38, was accused of holding his arm against a woman’s throat and pulling her hair as she lay on a couch in an Eagle-Vail home around midnight Dec. 28. The woman’s name is being withheld. Stahl has been a music teacher at Battle Mountain High School since 2006. Brooke Skjonsby, spokeswoman for Eagle County School District, said Stahl is on administrative leave now, though she did not know why. She did not offer further details. In January, Skjonsby said the School District could not comment on the allegations. Stahl is relieved that prosecutors decided to drop the charges, said Jim Fahrenholtz of Avon-based Fahrenholtz Carey & Weins, which represented Stahl. Stahl has denied the allegations from the start and he should be presumed innocent, Fahrenholtz said. “It just didn’t happen,” Fahrenholtz said about the incident. “It was definitely an accusation that I think would have been unproven at trial,” he said. Prosecutors dismissed a misdemeanor third-degree assault, domestic violence charge, said Eagle County District Attorney Mark Hurlbert said. The woman did not want to testify against Stahl had the case gone to trial, Hurlbert said. Prosecutors often go forward with domestic violence cases without testimony from alleged victims, but Stahl’s case could not be won without the woman, he said. “Without her testimony, we felt that we were not going to be able to prove the case beyond a reasonable doubt,” he said. |
Ex-ski Instructor Not Guilty of Rape
David Lorenzen ‘takes responsibility’ for buying liquor for teen, attorney says
Steve Lynn
Vail, CO Colorado EAGLE — A former ski instructor was found not guilty Thursday of raping a woman to whom he’d given lessons in the past, said Eagle County District Attorney Mark Hurlbert.
A jury found David Lorenzen, 44, not guilty of sexual assault using force, sexual assault overcoming a victim’s will and sex assault in a position of trust, Hurlbert said.
Jim Fahrenholtz, defense attorney for Lorenzen, described Lorenzen as “delighted.”
“We were able to show what we knew all along in the case, and we were able to present that to a fair-minded jury,” Fahrenholtz said.
Lorenzen was found guilty of felony contributing to the delinquency of a minor, Hurlbert said.
Lorenzen bought the 17-year-old woman a six-pack of Smirnoff Ice, of which she drank almost four bottles.
Prosecutors will recommend prison for Lorenzen and the charge carries a maximum sentence of six years in prison and a minimum of two years, he said.
Hurlbert didn’t know why the jury found Lorenzen innocent of the sex charges, he said.
“Certainly these are tough cases, but we’re happy that he was convicted of a felony,” Hurlbert said.
An 18-year-old woman, whose name is being withheld, accused Lorenzen, 44, of raping her in his Avon apartment in January 2006 after they had skied together at Beaver Creek. She was 17 at the time.
A judge will sentence Lorenzen June 20 at 11 a.m., Hurlbert said.
“He basically admitted to it,” Fahrenholtz said about Lorenzen’s guilty charge. “He takes responsibility for that.”
Lorenzen was not available for comment Thursday and Fahrenholtz said he would advise Lorenzen not to discuss the case before he was sentenced.
Staff Writer Steve Lynn can be reached at 748-2931 or slynn@vaildaily.com. |
Allegations of Art Gallery Fraud Dropped Settlement says Gypsum woman will pay former employer $20,000
Steve Lynn
Vail, CO Colorado
EAGLE — Nine felony charges against a former art gallery accused of stealing art and fraudulently using credit cards were dismissed last week, authorities said.
Diane Stockmar, of Gypsum, would pay $20,000 to her former employer though prosecutors dropped nine felony charges — a count of theft, four counts of unauthorized use of a transaction device and four counts of criminal impersonation, said District Attorney Mark Hurlbert.
“Cases are very fluid — sometimes the evidence gets worse and sometimes the evidence gets better,” Hurlbert said. “The evidence got so bad that we couldn’t prove the case beyond a reasonable doubt.”
Stockmar was accused of failing to pay gallery artists for more than $100,000 of artwork and impersonating gallery co-owner Adele Arrowsmith to apply for credit cards for her own use, police said.
Police began investigating Stockmar in 2002, when the Dragonfly Art Gallery in Avon went out of business.
The restitution Stockmar agreed to pay was not an admission of guilt, said her defense attorney Jim Fahrenholtz.
Stockmar was confident to go to trial because a jury would have found her not guilty, he said.
“I think that this whole ordeal has worn on my client and she’s glad it over with,” Fahrenholtz said. “She never would have pled guilty to anything.”
Fahrenholtz had evidence that former gallery owner Adele Arrowsmith gave Stockmar permission to start credit card accounts. Police searched Stockmar’s home and never found any stolen art and Arrowsmith failed to correctly take inventory, he said.
Arrowsmith was “very shaken and very upset” by prosecutors’ decision.
“I deserved a great deal more,” Arrowsmith said. “With $20,000 how am I going to pay the artists who were also deceived and robbed?”
Prosecutors called Arrowsmith, of Burbank, Calif., several times to try to fill in gaps in the evidence, but that didn’t work, Hurlbert said.
“That doesn’t mean I didn’t believe that there aren’t victims in this case,” Hurlbert said. “I just can’t prove it, given the state of the evidence.”
Staff Writer Steve Lynn can be reached at 748-2931 or slynn@vaildaily.com. |
Avon Man Not Guilty in Rape Case
Veronca Whitney EAGLE - A jury found an Avon man not guilty of raping, kidnapping and beating up a Honduran woman in his car in 2003. After a four-day trial last week, the jury acquitted Alex Rolando Canales, 34, of seven criminal charges, including counts of sexual assault and kidnapping. Prosecutors originally charged Canales with 27 crimes. Among the charges Canales faced were kidnapping and sexually assaulting the woman with a weapon, which could have carried a life sentence. "That charge is as bad as first-degree murder," said Jim Fahrenholtz, who defended Canales. "This case ranks as one of the top cases I've defended," added Fahrenholtz, who has worked on several murder trials. District Attorney Mark Hurlbert said the prosecution had good evidence against Canales. "We weren't out-lawyered," he said. Canales, a Honduran national, had been held in the Eagle County jail since his arrest Dec. 17, 2003. According to police reports, Canales was accused of enticing the woman into the car and sexually assaulting her several times in different parking lots in Eagle County. The reports also said he had told the woman he had a knife and that he had AIDS. Canales, however, said sex was consensual. "This, once again, proves how hard it is to prove sexual assault cases," Hurlbert said. "But this won't dissuade us from vigorously continuing to prosecute those cases." To Fahrenholtz, it all came down to the credibility of the victim. "A juror told me he wasn't convinced of her credibility," he said. "She was drunk and urinated and threw up in the car." As a result of her encounter with Canales, the woman had only a slight bruise on her wrist that didn't match the description of being beaten while she was being raped, Fahrenholtz said. "There were no marks on her face, not even a scratch," he said. "No torn clothing. No vaginal or anal tears." Though he was acquitted of the criminal charges, Canales, an illegal immigrant, is now in a detention center in Aurora. He will be seeking political asylum because he is from Honduras, Fahrenholtz said. Staff Writer Veronica Whitney can be reached at 949-0555, ext. 454, or vwhitney@vaildaily.com. Vail, Colorado |
Man, Found Innocent, Fights Deportation 
Veronica Whitney EAGLE COUNTY - Every time Fabian Vasquez has a court date but can't get out of the immigration jail he's been in since June, he gets desperate, his mother Lupe Torres said.
"He cries and says, 'Mom, get me out of here,'" Torres said.
Vazquez is a 24-year-old man from Gypsum who has cerebral palsy. He has been held in a detention center in Aurora ever since an Eagle County jury acquitted him of attempted sexual assault in June.
"It's hard, I'm worried every day," Torres said. "He has always been by my side."
Vasquez battled criminal charges and spent 17 months in the Eagle County jail. Two days after his acquittal, he was taken to an immigration detention center because he's a Mexican national without legal status. Now, he's trying to avoid deportation and a life in Mexico far away from his family. But after fighting for months in an immigration court, the Vasquez family's options are running out now that an immigration judge has denied bond and asylum to Fabian.
If his family doesn't appeal the judge's decision soon, Fabian will be deported by mid-November, his brother Jorge Vasquez said. Because the family has spent thousands of dollars in the criminal and immigration cases, they're seeking financial help.
"We've already spent $10,000 in the appeal of the bond and the asylum case," Jorge Vasquez said. "If we don't do the appeal, they'll take him to Mexico and all our family is here."
Trying to stay
Fabian's case is similar to that of many immigrants from Mexico, but for the fact that he has an illness that causes seizures and panic attacks.
Fabian has lived in the country for 12 years and his whole family is close to getting residency status. His youngest brother was born in the United States, his parents own a home in Gypsum and his mother owns a small cleaning business.
"I'm in a tough situation," Lupe Torres said. "My youngest son was born in the U.S. and he wouldn't be happy if we had to move back to Mexico. I have everything here: A home, children, grandchildren, it wouldn't be a life to go back."
But Torres is afraid of what will happen to Fabian if he's deported. "He can't go to live with strangers, nobody will take care of him as I will," she said.
If his brother goes back to Mexico, Jorge Vasquez said he could end up in a mental institution.
"An expert who testified at the hearing said that putting Fabian in that kind of mental institution would be like giving him a life sentence in jail," he said.
Though it would be hard to get Fabian asylum in the United States, Torres said the family will have to appeal the judge's decision to continue with other options.
"This problem we've had has been financially a disaster for us," Torres said. "That's why we thought of asking the county people for help. We don't want to give up."
Fabian, who attended high school in Eagle County, was acquitted of attempted sexual assault on a child. He was accused of trying to touch a 14-year-old boy's penis on a bus going from Avon to Eagle.
Jim Fahrenholtz, Fabian's attorney during the criminal case, said the alleged victim misinterpreted Fabian's intentions, because Fabian has a hard time communicating verbally.
Vail, Colorado |
Sexual Assault Case Dismissed
Steve Lynn
Cail Co., Colorado EAGLE — A Gypsum man’s sexual assault case was dismissed Monday, authorities said. Prosecutors dismissed a felony count of sexual assault against Randy Christopher Medina, 32, of Gypsum, said Mark Hurlbert, Eagle County district attorney. Medina always maintained that he had consensual sex with the woman, said Jim Fahrenholtz, Medina’s defense attorney. “My client feels relieved that these charges are dismissed, but even with the dismissal, you never fully clear your name,” Fahrenholtz said. The incident took place in February 2006, but the woman moved to California and prosecutors were unable to find her to participate in Medina’s trial, Hurlbert said. “We thought this was a very good case to prosecute and we were anticipating a conviction,” Hurlbert said. Medina and the woman — whose name is being withheld — met in a bar and returned to Medina’s residence, where the woman willingly entered his room, authorities said. Hurlbert and Fahrenholtz disagreed as whether the sex was consensual. “(Witnesses) said they saw him and her in the bar and that they were all over each other,” Fahrenholtz said. Medina and the woman were talking and flirting, but were not “all over each other,” Hurlbert said. The woman “passed out” and spent the night at Medina’s home. She woke up, vomited, left Medina’s home without her underwear and reported the rape to police, Hurlbert said. After he denied raping the woman, police found the woman’s underwear between Medina’s bed mattress and boxspring during a search of his bedroom and arrested him, Hurlbert said. Scratches were found on the man’s chest and the woman reported soreness in her vagina, Hurlbert said. The woman was an adult, but Hurlbert did not know her age, he said. A nurse’s exam showed Medina did not rape the woman, Fahrenholtz said. The underwear was put between the boxspring and mattress during sex, he said. The scratches showed that the woman enjoyed the sex, Fahrenholtz said. “It’s another one of these he said, she said or she said, he said cases,” Fahrenholtz said. Police did not investigate the incident thoroughly, Fahrenholtz said. They failed to interview those who saw Medina with the woman at the bar and the man’s roommates, he said. “We were fully prepared to bring up any issue that they thought was strong in the case,” Fahrenholtz said. Hurlbert said police did a good job in the case and called Fahrenholtz’s comments “a typical defense attorney ploy,” he said. Staff Writer Steve Lynn can be reached at 748-2931 or slynn@vaildaily.com. |
Gypsum Cerebral Palsy Patient Acquitted After 17 Months in Jail
Veronica Whitney EAGLE - To Fabian Vazquez, who has cerebral palsy, his 17 months in jail were an injustice, his brother Jorge Vazquez said Wednesday.
First, came the accusations Vazquez had attempted to touch a 14-year-old on a bus. Then, he was arrested and spent nearly a year-and-a-half at the Eagle County jail charged with a felony. Then came the first trial last month and a hung jury.
Though Fabian Vazquez, 24, of Gypsum, finally was acquitted Tuesday after a second trial, his legal problems might not be over. Today the Sheriff's Office is scheduled to transport him to Denver and hand him over to immigration authorities.
Jorge Vazquez said that, at first, his brother didn't know what he was accused of.
"Fabian had a very hard time in jail," he added. "He cried a lot and had panic attacks. It was very difficult for everyone.
"My mom was desperate that something could happen to him in jail," he added. "People with disabilities like him shouldn't be in jail, but in a different place."
'Of Mice and Men'
Fabian Vazquez, who was acquitted of attempted sexual assault on a child - a charge that can send someone to prison for six years, was accused of trying to touch a 14-year-old boy's penis on a bus going from Avon to Eagle.
But his attorney, Jim Fahrenholtz, said the alleged victim misinterpreted Fabian's intentions, who has a hard time communicating verbally.
"We had special education teachers from Battle Mountain High School who said (Fabian) touches people often times to get their attention," Fahrenholtz said.
The defining moment in the case came when the teen-age boy testified, Fahrenholtz added.
"He said he was afraid for his life when he was on the bus with Fabian," Fahrenholtz said. Fahrenholtz said Fabian made the boy think of a character in a book the boy had recently read at school, 'Of Mice and Men,' in which a mentally retarded man accidentally kills a woman.
"That's why the kid got scared and misinterpreted what (Fabian) was trying to do," Fahrenholtz said.
'Trying to communicate'
For Fahrenholtz, and another local defense attorney who asked not to be named, the prosecution should have dropped the case when the first trial ended without a verdict.
"Eight jurors voted to acquit and four to convict," Fahrenholtz said. "On Tuesday, it took this jury two hours to acquit Fabian."
District Attorney Mark Hurlbert couldn't comment for this story because he was out of town Wednesday.
Though Fahrenholtz believes the law has to apply equally to people who are and aren't disabled, he said prosecutors should take into account whether someone's disability has caused misinterpretation.
"You have to prosecute people equally," he said. "But our theory of defense was that this kid was trying to communicate."
Immigration issues
So far, the Vazquez family, who came from Mexico 12 years ago, has spent $30,000 defending Fabian. And it's not over yet. Though he was acquitted Tuesday night, Vazquez was ordered by immigration authorities to remain at the Eagle County jail. Though he has lived in the country for 12, and his whole family is close to getting residency status soon, Fabian Vazquez could have trouble staying in the United States. Jorge Vazquez said the family already has an immigration attorney lined up in Denver. "We don't have any family in Mexico anymore," Jorge Vazquez said. "If they send him back there, I don't know who would take care of him." Staff Writer Veronica Whitney can be reached at 949-0555, ext. 454, or vwhitney@vaildaily.com. |
Sex Assault Charges Dropped Against Eagle County Man
Eagle County jury finds man not guilty on charges of sexual assault on a child Dustin Racioppi
dracioppi@vaildaily.com
Eagle County, CO Colorado
EAGLE COUNTY, Colorado — An Eagle County, Colorado jury found a local man not guilty on Tuesday on charges of sexual assault on a child and incest, attorney Jim Fahrenholtz said.
Because of the nature of the crime the man was accused of, Fahrenholtz could not reveal the man’s identity. The man was accused by his daughter several years ago that he touched her inappropriately. The daughter, who was 11 at the time, told that to a school counselor who recommended she seek professional therapy, Fahrenholtz said. The girl didn’t see a therapist until six months later, and it was then she alleged her father committed more lewd acts that included her being sexually assaulted several times. Police arrested the man in August of 2007. “It’s been hanging over his head for the last year-and-a-half,” Fahrenholtz said. Fahrenholtz believes that because police didn’t conduct a thorough investigation into the allegations made by the daughter prior to arresting the man, that that worked in the man’s favor. A review by the state Department of Social Services concluded that there was no history of sexual abuse, no safety risk and no pattern of sexual assault in the father’s relationship with the daughter. Also, a staged phone call between the father and daughter — with local and Front Range police listening without the father’s knowledge — showed that the father thoroughly denied the claims his daughter was making. The man’s trial took two days, Fahrenholtz said. “Obviously my client is very relieved he found not guilty, but at the same time, he will not be able to clear his name 100 percent,” Fahrenholtz said. “A lot of people still think in the back of their minds because a person was arrested they’re guilty.” Fahrenholtz said the man was out on bail during most of the trial and spent about 17 days in jail after being arrested. | | | | Two Convenient Locations to Serve You:
Avon Office: 100 West Beaver Creek Boulevard, Suite 23 Avon, Colorado 81620
Grand Junction Office: 114 North Spruce Street Grand Junction, Colorado 81501 |
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