For most of the 20 years Marke Bogle spent behind bars, the state was happy to exploit his skills as an electrician.
So happy, in fact, that prison officials drove Bogle, albeit in shackles, to Denver to take his electrical exams. Every two years, the Department of Corrections paid to renew his license. And wardens kept him on call wiring prisons, installing surveillance systems and repairing electrified fences — at the bargain rate of 60 cents a day.
So it seems wrong, now that Bogle has done his time, for the state to cite his murder conviction in threatening to yank the license he needs to make a living.
“All that money I saved the state, and then I start my new life and it’s like ‘You’re no good to us any more,’ ” says Bogle, 49.
He speaks candidly about the day in 1985 when he strangled his wife with one hand — a crime that brought him a life sentence.
“She started one fight too many, and I ended it the wrong way. I’ve been paying for it ever since,” he says.
He had worked with wiring since age 12, when his dad started teaching him the trade.
With the DOC’s nod, he got his journeyman license from prison in 1987 and a year later earned his license as a master electrician.
For 18 years, he put in 12- to 15-hour days doing what the system asked. He moved from prison to prison on remodel and repair jobs and even trained other inmates as apprentices.
The only assignment Bogle refused: wiring a room at Territorial Prison to administer lethal injections.
Bogle’s labor saved countless tax dollars and kept him sane.
He was released on good behavior in 2006, and is under intensive supervision in Littleton.
He works as a manager for Northern Electric Inc. doing large projects, including contracts for the state.
In November, Attorney General John Suthers’ office wrote to say Colorado’s Electrical Board — which has known about Bogle’s crime for years — was filing disciplinary proceedings because of his conviction.
Colorado’s Department of Regulatory Affairs, which oversees the board, won’t talk about Bogle’s license, but cites guidelines saying “the board’s purpose when reviewing the status of all licenses is to ensure the safety of the public.”
“I think it’s a bunch of crap,” says Richard Nailor, the former DOC captain under whom Bogle worked for 10 years.
As an electrician, Nailor says, Bogle is “one of the best,” noting he would read up on electrical systems in his prison cell.
Nailor recalls the day he climbed a lamppost that Bogle realized was about to snap.
“I was 22 feet up and he held it real carefully as I eased down,” he said. “He’s been in places where if he wanted to kill me, he could have done it 10 times. Instead, basically, this man saved my life.”
Bogle’s current boss, Northern Electric’s CEO O.J. Fleming, blasts the state for benefiting from Bogle’s work and now threatening to pull his license:
“He’s paid his debt to society and has every right to make a meaningful living.”
Bogle is negotiating to keep his license under a strict probation.
Still, he worries about other inmates whose livelihoods in skilled trades are threatened:
“What about the next guy who gets out and gets roadblocked by the system?”
Susan Greene writes Sundays, Tuesdays and Thursdays. Reach her at 303-954-1989 or greene@denverpost.com.
