GOLDEN — On March 5, a recently retired woman was driving on West 38th Avenue at Kendall Street in Wheat Ridge when a fleeing fugitive going well over 80 mph slammed into her pickup.
The woman — who asked that she be referred to only as “Deanna” — doesn’t recall anything between the time of the impact and when she woke up in an emergency room 50 minutes later.
Because of the injuries she suffered, she has constant pain, multiple doctors’ appointments and bills, is on many medications and suffers from what she describes as “a loss of energy.”
“The incident has cost me physically, emotionally, time and financially,” she said Tuesday as she addressed the man who ran into her, 24-year-old Justin K. Kautz.
“Quite frankly, this is not how I envisioned my retirement to be like, since the incident happened just eight months into it,” Deanna said.
Kautz was sentenced Tuesday to 12 years in prison for burglary, six years for aggravated motor-vehicle theft and six years for eluding — all to run concurrently.
Jefferson County District Judge Jane Tidball then sentenced him to eight years for escape, to run consecutively to the first three charges. The ultimate sentence: 20 years in prison.
Last March, Kautz had walked away from a halfway house where he was placed to transition from prison to the community. He had been sentenced in July 2005 on multiple convictions, including aggravated motor-vehicle theft, menacing and vehicular eluding.
Police were on the lookout for Kautz because he was a fugitive and was suspected of other crimes since leaving the halfway house.
When Kautz was spotted by police in a stolen Toyota Sequoia near Arvada City Hall, officers closed in.
Instead of stopping, said prosecutor Don Nottingham, Kautz aimed the giant SUV at a detective’s car and took off, the detective avoiding a collision by swerving at the last moment.
What ensued were some of the most dangerous actions Nottingham said he has ever seen by a defendant. Officers pursuing the vehicle slowed down when they hit 85 mph and Kautz was pulling away from them.
On West 38th, Kautz was at one point going at least 100 mph eastbound in the westbound lanes, Nottingham said.
After hitting Deanna, Kautz continued to West 38th and Jay Street in Wheat Ridge, where he veered off 38th through a parking lot. There, he crashed into an unoccupied SUV.
Kautz jumped out of the Sequoia, leaving his badly injured and pregnant girlfriend, Cheri Hall, in the vehicle. Two hours later, a SWAT team captured him in a nearby apartment building.
Tuesday, Kautz said he was sorry.
“I do want to apologize, and my heart goes out to (Deanna) and her family,” he said.
Howard Pankratz: 303-954-1939 or hpankratz@denverpost.com
