Nicole Denman, the ex-wife of a stalker, said Tuesday that she and a Colorado parole official were horrified when Florida officials decided to extradite her former husband to the Sunshine State.
Denman said that while her ex-husband, James Denman, 35, was in Colorado, she knew he was under intensive supervision and was wearing a monitor that tracked his every move.
He was released early this summer after he served about three years for stalking Nicole.
In Florida, she knew his bail was only $5,000 and that he wouldn’t be wearing a monitor. He faces charges there stemming from a 1999 incident.
“I talked to Colorado before he was extradited, and I let them know I wasn’t very happy and I let the parole officer know,” she said from her hiding place Tuesday. “He (the parole official) said he was very unhappy because they had lost the monitoring and it was out of their jurisdiction now.
“And he told me that … if he gets out, he is free to go, wander the streets of Florida. And I was like, ‘Well that’s great!”‘
James Denman made the $5,000 bond on Aug. 18 in St. Petersburg.
Denman said her ex-husband repeatedly physically abused and threatened to kill her and has hurt or threatened to hurt her family. Over the years, she said, he has strangled and punched her, fractured her hand, kicked her and spit and urinated on her.
He has threatened to kill her and make a necklace of her teeth.
After she fled his abuse in Idaho and moved to her mother’s home in Grand Lake, Denman showed up with two vehicles. In them, authorities found binoculars, a pistol, a machete, a rifle, ammunition, pepper spray, handcuffs, duct tape, a BB pistol, a passport in Denman’s deceased brother’s name bearing Denman’s photograph and a blank passport.
Now, Florida officials, who knew little about Denman’s past until Monday, are trying to expedite paperwork from Colorado that will allow them to fit Denman with a monitor so his every move can be watched, Richard Ripplinger, a Florida assistant state’s attorney said Tuesday.
If Denman fails to appear for a hearing on Nov. 18, an arrest warrant will be issued.
But that is little comfort to Nicole Denman, who fled Colorado with her two children shortly before Denman’s release.
“I don’t know that he’s there (Florida). I don’t know that he’s left the country,” she said. She is prepared to move from her current hiding place, where she has found part-time work and her two children are in school.
Ripplinger, who has devoted his last 36 hours to studying Denman’s history, said Denman is apparently complying with parole terms and has been in contact with parole officers. He tells officers he is living in St. Petersburg.
But to Nicole, it is an old story.
“My thought is, ‘Here we go again,”‘ she said.
Staff writer Howard Pankratz can be reached at 303-820-1939 or hpankratz@denverpost.com.
