One terrible morning in 2004, Peter Spitz’s wife, Teresa, took their infant son to a friend’s house, then shot Spitz in the face, blinding him, and killed his mother. Last week, after years of rehab and legal battles, the ex-Marine got a precious piece of his life back, when a…
Charles Farrar is serving what amounts to a life sentence for sexual assault on a child — even though his accuser, his stepdaughter Sacha, came forward months after the verdict and admitted to fabricating her elaborate story about years of sexual abuse. And that situation isn’t going to change any…
Two days of the month, eight months of the year, for almost twenty years, Rich Giannotti hauled out his handmade signs — “NO PARKING TODAY STREET SWEEPING” — and posted them on one side or the other of the 1700 block of Grape Street, a block that had successfully defied…
Judging from the emotionally charged online comments in response to this week’s cover story, “Beyond Belief,” many Westword readers are baffled, outraged and just plain frustrated about the bizarre and tragic case of Charles Farrar — a man who’s still serving a 145-year sentence for sexually assaulting his stepdaughter Sacha,…
This week’s cover story, “Beyond Belief,” tracks the nightmare journey of Charles Farrar, serving what amounts to a life sentence in prison for sexually assaulting his 15-year-old stepdaughter, Sacha — even though his alleged victim came forward after trial and admitted that she’d fabricated the accusations so she could go…
This week’s cover story, “Beyond Belief,” examines the devastating, long-term impact of a false report of sexual abuse made by a fifteen-year-old Aurora girl — allegations against her mother and stepfather that were aggressively prosecuted despite the lack of any supporting evidence and plenty of indications that the entire story…
They took away the children eleven years ago. They took away the family photos just the other day — 212 glossy images of kids now grown, of smiling grandchildren he’s never seen or held. Charles Farrar kept the pictures in his cell in the Sterling Correctional Facility, a collection that…
Charles Farrar is serving a 145-year prison sentence at the Sterling Correctional Facility after being found guilty on 22 counts of sexual abuse against his teenaged step-daughter, Sacha Bruce. Except he didn’t do any of it…
What happens in a public trial becomes public record. Except when the government says it doesn’t. That little hitch in the law fuels the ongoing battle between Prison Legal News and the U.S. Justice Department over a graphic video shot inside the U.S. Penitentiary Florence in the aftermath of a…
Secretary of the Interior Ken Salazar announced federal approval of four large renewable energy projects in the West today, touting the new jobs and clean power that those projects and others in the pipeline will bring — and described his department’s approach to renewables as so aggressive that it’s “on…
The U.S. Air Force has delayed release of an environmental impact study of its proposal to conduct intensive low-altitude training flights across a wide swath of southern Colorado — flights as low as 200 feet that had raised concerns among local ranchers and residents seeking the quiet life…
A list of “The 19 Most Hated Companies in America” in The Atlantic aspires to quantify all the rotten customer service, hidden and excessive fees, broken promises and general consumer aggravation out there. And one Colorado-based company, Dish Network, shows up at No. 18 — a bit embarrassing, sure, but…
That gnashing of teeth and muttered cursing you hear is coming from energy companies and developers north of the state border. Last week, U.S. District Judge John L. Kane ruled that an obscure jumping mouse should be considered a threatened species not only in Colorado but in Wyoming, too –…
Here’s the nonmusical puzzle of the day: Is Sheryl Crow’s headliner appearance at Cheyenne Frontier Days July 22 a good thing or bad thing for wild horses? It’s not exactly a no-brainer, despite the singer-songwriter’s long history of animal rights activism. And — not to digress or anything — but…
When you’re in your third year of law school, you want something a bit meatier than dusty lectures and heavily footnoted case studies. If you’re Jon Bellish, that means you head for The Netherlands — and the trial of a man charged with some of the most heinous war crimes…
Crews will be taking down the big blue Qwest signs high above California Street next week, replacing them with the bilious green CenturyLink logo. So ends an acrimonious era, as Qwest — the former fiber-optic whiz kid, the brash bad boy of the telecom world who came to town amid…
You won’t find many prisons where the subject of rape behind bars is openly discussed, by inmates or staff — not because it isn’t a problem, but because it is. A Bureau of Justice Statistics report estimates that more than 200,000 adult prisoners endured sexual assaults in 2008, roughly one…
We’ve noted in this space before before the tendency among Colorado governors to load up the state parole board with former Denver police officers, as if the job was essentially an $85,000-a-year private security gig. Judging from John Hickenlooper’s new appointments to the board, that streak is very much alive…
In Colorado, degenerate urbanites are used to letting our mountain towns take the lead when it comes to killjoy environmental reforms, such as restricting the use of gas grills or parking spaces. So it figures that the green-leaning town of Basalt is proposing to get tough on plastic bag sinners…
Back in the lock-em-up frenzy of the 1990s, overcrowded state prison systems relied heavily on the emerging private prison industry to handle their excess inmates. Now that state prison populations are falling, you might expect the private sector to be taking a few hits, too — but guess again. For…
It’s safe to say the auction exceeded expectations. The only known photograph of William McCarty, alias Billy the Kid, was expected to draw bids around $400,000 over the weekend at Brian Lebel’s Old West Show & Auction in Denver. Instead, it went for a jaw-dropping $2 million to oilman and…
Outraged by a federal plan to manage two Wyoming herds of wild horses into oblivion by sterilizing hundreds of mares, activists will gather outside a public hearing at the Bureau of Land Management field office in Rock Springs tonight to denounce the large-scale “experimental surgery” — the latest flashpoint in…
