Pat Sullivan’s attorney complained to a judge during a hearing this week that “his public service is being used against him.”
“Given the amount of good he’s done,” argued attorney Kevin McGreevy, “not just for Colorado but for Arapahoe County … (I ask) that his bond be reduced to $50,000.”
The judge consented to the request, and maybe it was the right call. Maybe Sullivan’s record shouldn’t be “used against him” when setting bail. But let’s certainly hope it is used against him when prosecutors finalize all charges and — if Sullivan is convicted — a judge considers sentencing.
Let’s hope prosecutors and the judiciary remember that a drugs-for-sex operation run by a former sheriff of impeccable reputation represents a more sinister phenomenon than a ring run by a deadbeat whose only accomplishment in life is to exploit people even more pathetic than himself.
If the charges and stories surrounding them are true, Sullivan used his former power and prestige to facilitate his pastime as a criminal distributing one of the most destructive drugs on the street. He allegedly traded on his good name to bully the powerless, to mislead his brethren in law enforcement and to reward addicts he intended to manipulate and exploit.
To say that Sullivan should be treated more harshly — within the confines of the law, of course — than the ordinary lowlife is not to hold him to a higher standard. It is simply to recognize that his alleged crimes represent a greater threat to society than those other transgressions.
Dante didn’t reserve the final two circles of hell for fraudulence and treachery by accident.
Indeed, the most surprising theme in the stories swirling around Sullivan is the sheer brazenness of his reported betrayal. If the tales are true, we’re not talking about a man ashamed of an uncontrollable urge to debase himself in squalid associations and who therefore did everything possible to suppress his name and the nature of his former calling.
To the contrary: He apparently flaunted both.
For example, the owner of a home in Centennial told this newspaper that Sullivan said he couldn’t boot out unwelcome drug users and actually ordered him “to let them stay for free. He said … it would hold up in court, and said, ‘Do you know who I am?’
“He was telling me he has a jail named after him.”
The question, “Do you know who I am?” is the timeless calling card of a man intoxicated with his own importance.
Sullivan, however, may have coined another such saying all on his own — namely, “I’m the man this building is named after” — which he declared, according to court documents reviewed by Post reporters, when a county deputy questioned who he was.
His visits to detention facilities on behalf of young men struggling with addiction might have raised more suspicion had he not been able to claim, as a former sheriff known for his activity in a variety of causes, that he was working in a state drug-treatment program.
Given this context, it is ironic that his lawyer complains that his public service is being used against him and that his many good deeds have been neglected. It is those good deeds that allegedly provided cover and credibility for Mr. Hyde.
And are we really supposed to believe Hyde emerged only when Sullivan reached his mid-60s? Why is it I suspect that the 22-member task force being organized to probe into his past may well detonate that initial assumption?
Reach Vincent Carroll at vcarroll@denverpost.com
