Add letters to Osama bin Laden, a suspension for illegal use of a criminal database and roundabout rowdiness to the campaign issues in Pitkin County’s already colorful – and sometimes off-color – sheriff’s race.
Aspen Community Safety Officer Rick Magnuson, whose challenge to incumbent Bob Braudis has turned up reports of a lewd video and of the sheriff’s stint in alcohol rehab, made new headlines this week when it was revealed that Magnuson, 41, had been reprimanded or punished for several incidents in 2002.
“At this point all of my skeletons have been exposed,” Magnuson said Wednesday. “I believe (Braudis) probably has more skeletons than I do. I would look more like Andy Griffith than him.”
Braudis, 61, is staying quiet about Magnuson.
Records first released to the Aspen Daily News show Magnuson was suspended without pay for one day and placed on six months’ probation after he used the Colorado Criminal Information Center database in December 2002 to conduct a background check on a woman he was dating.
After learning there was a warrant for her arrest on suspicion of credit-card fraud, Magnuson shared the information with the woman – a violation of Colorado law, according to Lance Clem with the Colorado Bureau of Investigation.
Magnuson said he didn’t know what he was doing was illegal and thought she was the victim of identity theft but later learned she had conned him.
In early December 2002, a New Jersey counterterrorism strike-force prosecutor contacted Aspen police about a letter to Osama bin Laden.
Magnuson, a part-time performance artist, had sent 60 envelopes addressed to bin Laden and President Bush to fictitious addresses across the country as part of an art project. The envelopes, with Magnuson’s return address, contained articles about terrorism.
An internal Aspen Police Department report said the prosecutor wanted to inform the police of “a possible unstable person who may be involved in terrorism living in your area.”
Two months earlier, Vail police complained that Magnuson had been repeatedly circling a roundabout in a rental truck and ignored an officer’s warnings to stop. Magnuson was filming a goldfish in a bowl on the dashboard as he circled.
Aspen Assistant Police Chief Glenn Schaffer wrote in Magnuson’s personnel file that “his actions are starting to bring the department into public discredit.”
Schaffer and Aspen Police Chief Loren Ryerson did not return phone calls for comment Wednesday.
Magnuson jump-started his campaign this year by tracking Braudis to an out-of-state alcohol rehabilitation facility and leaving a message for the sheriff to call the editor of a local newspaper.
Magnuson later made waves with a video depicting himself masturbating in the Mojave Desert. It ran on Aspen public television.
Staff writer Nancy Lofholm can be reached at 970-256-1957 or nlofholm@denverpost.com.
