Courthouse phones still out of order
Arapahoe County courthouse operations have been hampered since Wednesday when phone service was accidentally knocked out.
Court administrators dealing with Qwest said they did not know when phone service would be re-established, but court clerks and judges have had to use personal cellphones to make up for the outage.
Phone service to the courthouse was cut about noon Wednesday. As of the end of the business day Thursday, service was still out.
E-mail service at the neighboring Arapahoe County district attorney’s office also was cut, officials said.
Holtzman campaign apologizes for e-mail
Republican Marc Holtzman’s gubernatorial campaign apologized Thursday for what it called “a screw-up” in soliciting campaign contributions.
A June 28 e-mail sent to about 1,300 would-be donors read: “Checks received before July 15 but dated prior to June 30 will still count” toward the reporting period ending this week.
Holtzman, who has never held elected office, faces U.S. Rep. Bob Beauprez in the race for the 2006 GOP gubernatorial nomination.
State statute says campaign contributions count in the reporting period when they’re cashed or deposited.
Holtzman’s political director, Laura Teal, said campaign volunteer Kyle Peters “didn’t know” that law when he sent the message.
“We’re still in full compliance with Colorado statutes. We just misspoke very poorly on an e-mail,” she said.
Holtzman ended his tenure as president of the University of Denver on Thursday to campaign full time for governor.
Teen sentenced in “car-surfing” death
A Wyoming teenager was sentenced to two years in juvenile detention in the “car-surfing” death of her friend.
Karen Buckley, 17, of Cheyenne agreed to the sentence as part of a plea deal that included her pleading guilty to vehicular homicide. District Judge Jolene Blair handed down the sentence June 24, saying the term was fair considering Buckley had no criminal history and showed remorse.
Buckley originally was charged as an adult and faced up to 12 years in prison. Investigators said Buckley and Shailynne Manning, 15, of Cheyenne took turns riding on top of a moving car in Fort Collins on Sept. 6. Buckley was driving when Manning fell and hit her head, police said.
Witnesses said Buckley told them to call an ambulance and drove away. Manning died a month later.
Roofers blamed for small fire at hotel
Roofers were blamed for starting a small fire Thursday afternoon at the old Regency Hotel at 3900 Elati St.
Denver Fire Department spokesman Derrick Delgado said there were no injuries in the fire, which took firefighters 40 minutes to douse.
The eyesore hotel, which the city of Denver shut down last year because of numerous fire code violations, is in the process of being renovated as student housing for the Auraria college campus.
Delgado said the cause of the fire had not been determined. But Mike Francone, director of student housing for the Auraria campus, said the fire “appears to have occurred during the removal and replacement of roofing material near the rotunda area (gold dome).”
Pair face charges in bogus-check ring
Two men were indicted Thursday by a Denver grand jury for overseeing a ring of nearly 100 people who allegedly passed forged or counterfeited checks at Denver-area grocery stores between December 2004 and March, resulting in losses of more than $80,000.
Howell Franklin Roberts III, 50, and Jessie James Martinez, 24, were accused of racketeering, computer crime and numerous counts of conspiracy and theft in the 75-page indictment.
The indictment says the checks were made payable to 91 people. Investigators say they believe the ring actually wrote $750,000 in checks but aren’t sure if some weren’t passed or have yet to be recognized as bogus.
Body of woman found in van is ID’d
Boulder County Coroner Tom Faure on Thursday released the identity of the woman whose body was found Monday in a field in the 100 block of South Sunset Street in Longmont. The cause of death has not been released.
Police discovered the body of Connie J. Callaway, 46, after following through on a report of a corpse in the back of a white van. Ruben Viguerias-Villa, 51, who was identified as the driver of the van, was arrested in connection with the death.
Eighth state case of hantavirus confirmed
The eighth case of hantavirus in Colorado was confirmed in Boulder County, officials said Thursday.
Boulder County Public Health is investigating the case to determine how the 24-year-old man was infected. The illness is a respiratory disease that can infect humans when they inhale dirt and dust contaminated with the urine and feces of deer mice.
