A man last July, and who was charged with sex trafficking a 17-year-old girl he toted along , was sentenced Monday to 80 years in prison.
Christopher Sullivan, 37, pleaded guilty to 47 counts in Jefferson County court in March. He was facing charges in two separate cases — the rampage and a case in which he was being held . The plea last month encompassed both cases.
The counts he pleaded guilty to included charges of aggravated robbery, first-degree assault, menacing with a deadly weapon, resisting arrest, contributing to the delinquency of a minor and pandering.
Sullivan faced up to 85 years in prison.
The pleas in the two cases represented Sullivan’s third and fourth felony convictions, according to the county district attorney’s office.
Sullivan’s crime spree began after what authorities called a routine traffic stop by a Jefferson County sheriff’s deputies. Sullivan committed while fleeing from law enforcement.
“There were 15 individual victims and three businesses (involved),” the district attorney’s office said in a news release. “Sullivan brandished an assault weapon throughout the criminal episode. He was also found to be in possession of methamphetamine.”
Part of the crime spree was captured by a television news helicopter flying overhead, which recorded the rampage ending on Interstate 70 when a sheriff’s deputy approached Sullivan on a motorcycle and held the suspect at gunpoint.
Motorists on the interstate as the deputy demounted and chased Sullivan through traffic.
Sullivan met the teen girl in Albuquerque, N.M. where he first paid for sex with her after arranging to meet her through a backpage.com ad, according to court records.
From New Mexico, the pair left for Lakewood, where Sullivan allegedly helped arrange for the teen to meet men from the Denver area in a motel room off Kipling Street, records say. The girl, whose identity authorities have not released, sold herself to three men before she was arrested along with Sullivan, records say.
Jesse Paul: 303-954-1733, jpaul@denverpost.com or twitter.com/JesseAPaul
