Three men tied to a headline-grabbing blaze that gutted a Greenwood Village mansion have been cleared by prosecutors of allegations that they planned to defraud banks that had backed multimillion-dollar mortgages on the home.
Arapahoe County prosecutors Wednesday said they filed motions to dismiss the remaining felony conspiracy charges against the men — builder Mikel Mewbourn, financier Matt Witt and homebuyer Denver Haslam — two months after a judge dismissed related felony bank-fraud charges against them.
Although the new motions require a judge’s signature, it’s typically a formality as prosecutors are making the request.
A judge had earlier ruled in a hearing that there wasn’t enough evidence to prosecute the men on the bank- fraud charges and dropped them.
Because the conspiracy charges are a lower-level felony, they were not subject to that same hearing. As a result, a separate motion was needed.
“The bottom line is that they are not going to refile anything related to the mortgage(s),” said Stanley Marks, Haslam’s defense lawyer.
County prosecutors, through a spokeswoman, said the case against the men is closed.
The three came under suspicion after a spectacular but suspicious fire gutted the 15,000-square-foot, six-bedroom, nine-bathroom estate at 5301 S. University Blvd. in November 2008.
No one has been connected to the fire, and insurance companies have refused to pay off on what investigators have said is a clear case of arson, instead tying the matter up with civil lawsuits.
“The arson (investigation) is open in the event they can make a case against anyone,” Marks said.
Mewbourn was one of two men who originally built the never-lived- in mansion.
Witt helped finance its construction and its subsequent sale through his hard-money lending firm, Commercial Capital Inc., which is in federal bankruptcy court.
David Migoya: 303-954-1506 or dmigoya@denverpost.com
