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Know of a court story I ought to be covering? Let me know. My e-mail: john.ensslin@gazette.com
John C. Ensslin
Legal affairs reporter
The Gazette
Know of a court story I ought to be covering? Let me know. My e-mail: john.ensslin@gazette.com
John C. Ensslin
Legal affairs reporter
The Gazette
Zeb Pike, court watcher
Hello court watchers,
The week ahead looks to an unusually busy one in the Fourth Judicial District with as many as three fairly high profile trials scheduled to begin Monday. Among them:
-Thomas Woolly, a Fort Carson soldier accused of manslaughter in the fatal shooting of a 19-year-old woman in a Colorado Springs apartment. Here’s an earlier story on the case.
-Aylais “Buddy” Oliver, a Security man accused of first-degree murder in the shooting death of his son during an argument over the Thanksgiving weekend in 2009. Here’s my most recent story on the case.
-Richard L. Riley, a parole officer accused of sexual assaulting a woman whose parole he was assigned to oversee. This is a retrial. Here’s a story from the first trial.
Also this week:
On Monday, Judge David Shakes is scheduled to rule on a request to exclude from evidence a videotaped interview with a 14-year-old boy accused of killing his younger brother and wounding their mother. Here’s my story about the case.
On Thursday, Judge Barney Iuppa is scheduled to impose a mandatory life sentence on Willie B. Allmon. A jury found Allmon guilty of the rape/murder of his 8-month-old grandson. This will be a chance for the boy’s mother and grandmother to have their say. Here’s my story on the verdict.
And on Friday, there’s a review hearing for Bruce Nozolino, the Colorado Springs anti-tax activist accused of killing one man in Stetson Hills and trying to kill his ex-wife’s divorce lawyer and the judge in the case. This is expected to be the first hearing where prosecutors outline their evidence against Nozolino. Here’s my most recent story on the case.
Keep in mind, trials and other hearings frequently are delayed or postponed. So what you see here may not happen. But even if only 1 or 2 of these trials gets underway, it will be a busy week.
Do you know of a court case I ought to be covering? Let me know. My e-mail is john.ensslin@gazette.com
John C. Ensslin
Legal Affairs reporter
The Gazette
Here are some scenes from the trial of Richard L. Riley, who is accused of sexually assaulting a woman whose parole he was supervising.
(Warning: some of this testimony is graphic and not for the faint-of-heart.)
The Office Visit, part one
The woman – whose name is withheld here because of the nature of the charges – testified that she would bring her grandmother to her monthly parole office visits with Riley. When she didn’t, the meetings would invariably turn flirtatious.
“He would grab his crotch and tell me how hard he was getting, sitting there,” she said.
“I played along because I was scared that I would get in trouble and scared that I would get him in trouble, because I felt sorry for him.”
The Office Visit, part two
The woman found a job working in Denver, where she said Riley paid her an unannounced visit one day.
This occurred after an earlier incident in which she testified they had sex at her Colorado Springs home.
But this visit seemed professional and she was excited to show him around. She asked him to wait around until she got off work at 5 p.m., saying that she wanted to talk to him about transferring her probation back to Denver from Colorado Springs.
When she finished work, the woman said she couldn’t find Riley in the lobby or parking lot. So she called him. He said he was at a hotel near Evans Avenue near Interstate 25, she said. He gave her directions and she drove there, she said. She described going to the room, found the door open and went inside where they had sex.
“I was feeling really guilty at the point,” she testified. “I started crying.
She said he asked “What’s wrong?”
“I don’t know,” she replied. I didn’t feel right. I started getting really emotional on him.”
She said he made a lighthearted remark.
Later, when she asked how he had paid for the room he responded by showing her the key and telling her she could stay the night if she wanted to, she said. She said she’d probably stay with her sister in Denver. They both left. She drove back to Colorado Springs.
Another man
Sometime after the hotel incident, the woman said she began an intimate relationship with an Army officer who she had met in Colorado Springs.
The officer’s wife had a cocaine addiction, so he turned to the woman for advice. When the officer and his wife separated, he and the other woman started a relationship, she said.
“He made me feel safe,” she testified. “He was wonderful…a respected man…a West Point graduate.”
She didn’t tell him about her relationship with her parole officer.
“He’s very honest, she said of her military boyfriend. “If I had told him, he would’ve encouraged me to turn him (Riley) in. I couldn’t do that – not then.”
Once she said her boyfriend heard her one the phone with Riley and asked who she was talking to.
Her parole officer, she replied.
“Wow, it didn’t sound like a parole officer to me,” she said he replied.
“How did that make you feel?” Deputy District Attorney Jennifer Viehman asked.
“Horrible,” she replied. “Like I’d found the man of my dreams and I was betraying him.”