A man who police once said intended to kill President Barack Obama on his inauguration day has been sentenced to 10 years in prison in an unrelated case involving the theft of heavy equipment and vehicles in northern Colorado.
Shawn Robert Adolf, 35, was also ordered to pay more than $88,000 in restitution to his victims, according to Attorney General John Suthers.
According to a federal criminal complaint filed in August 2008, Adolf said he wanted to kill Obama on his inauguration day and would use a sniper rifle and high-powered scope to carry out the assassination.
However, Troy Eid, the U.S. Attorney in Colorado at the time, declined to file charges in connection with the alleged plot.
Eid said there was a difference between a “true threat…and the reported racist rantings of illegal drug-users.”
Adolf allegedly became involved in a plot with two other men, Martin Dwaine Johnson and Tharin Robert Gartrell, because they disliked Obama’s African-American roots.
Eid described them as “meth heads”.
Court documents said that Johnson told authorities that Johnson and Gartrell came to Denver with Adolf specifically to kill Obama during the Democratic National Convention. But the three were so addled by drugs that they believed Obama was staying in a south Denver hotel. Obama was not in Denver yet.
Gartrell made national headlines after he was pulled over in a rented truck carrying weapons, including a rifle with a high-powered scope, during the convention in Denver. Gartrell and Adolf are cousins.
Adolf was originally indicted for the heavy equipment and automobile theft scheme by the Colorado Grand jury in May 2008 along with five others.
He pleaded guilty in October to theft, a class three felony.
Adolf, who was known as “Trouble” to other men in the theft ring, was indicted for stealing a Bobcat skid-loader in January 2007 from an oil tank battery facility in Weld County.
He was also indicted for stealing a 2001 Dodge Ram 2500 pickup truck in December 2006, also in Weld County. He was also indicted for forgery, theft by receiving and being an habitual criminal.
Howard Pankratz: 303-954-1939 or hpankratz@denverpost.com
