A man who police once said intended to kill President Barack Obama on 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, also was ordered to pay more than $88,000 in restitution, according to the office of state Attorney General John Suthers.
According to a federal criminal complaint filed in August 2008, Adolf said he wanted to kill Obama on Inauguration Day and would use a sniper rifle and high-powered scope to carry out the assassination.
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. Gartrell and Adolf are cousins.
Court documents said 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 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.
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.”
Eid described them as “meth heads.”
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 felony theft.
Adolf, who was known as “Trouble” to other men in the theft ring, was indicted in the theft of a Bobcat skid-loader in January 2007 from an oil tank battery facility in Weld County.
He also was indicted in the theft of a 2001 Dodge Ram 2500 pickup truck in December 2006, also in Weld County. And he was indicted on charges of forgery, theft by receiving and being a habitual criminal.
Howard Pankratz: 303-954-1939 or hpankratz@denverpost.com
