A Colorado woman who saw her 2009 murder conviction overturned last year is now seeking more than $830,000 from the state under a rarely used law that allows payments to people exonerated of crimes.

Acacia Lyn-Darr, 47, spent 11 years and 10 months in prison after she was wrongly convicted of felony murder in the 2009 killing of Robert Piserchio in Pueblo.

A judge erased her conviction in 2025, and prosecutors went on to dismiss the charges against her, acknowledging they could not prove their case.

Lyn-Darr filed a petition last week seeking nearly $832,000 under a 2013 law that pays exonerated people up to $70,000 for every year they spent behind bars for felony crimes they did not commit. The law also allows for a tuition waiver at state universities and payments for legal fees.

“Ms. Lyn-Darr had more than a decade of her life taken from her,” said Eric Klein, one of her attorneys. She hopes the money will help her rebuild, and she is considering attending college, he said.

If her petition is successful, Lyn-Darr would become just the fourth person to receive exoneration compensation from the state since the Colorado Exoneration Act was passed 13 years ago.

The state has paid out $3.2 million to three wrongly convicted people and an additional $345,000 to their attorneys under the law, according to records provided by the Colorado Judicial Department, which processes the payments.

Colorado Attorney General Phil Weiser has not yet decided whether to concede or oppose Lyn-Darr’s petition for compensation, spokesman Lawrence Pacheco said Tuesday.

Since 2019, no petition opposed by Weiser’s office has been successful, and payments have only been made when the attorney general concedes the case, according to records kept by the office.

A co-defendant falsely confessed

Lyn-Darr was wrongfully convicted of participating in the killing of 50-year-old Piserchio at his Pueblo home on Dec. 10, 2009, during what prosecutors at the time said was a robbery gone wrong. Piserchio was bound with duct tape, tortured and beaten. His body was set on fire.

A jury convicted Lyn-Darr after her then-boyfriend, Matthew Barnes, falsely confessed that he was involved in the killing and claimed that Lyn-Darr also took part in the attack. Neither person was there, and the killing was actually carried out by another man who acted alone, Lyn-Darr’s attorneys wrote in the petition for compensation. That man, Aaron Wilkerson, was also convicted of felony murder.

Barnes confessed to the killing after four hours of interrogation by investigators with the Pueblo County Sheriff’s Office, and only after a 30-minute window in which the camera recording the interrogation “suddenly and inexplicably stopped working,” Lyn-Darr’s attorneys, Klein and Gail Johnson, wrote in the petition.

The camera came back on as Barnes made his confession. The moment he switched from declaring his innocence to confessing to murder was not captured on the sheriff’s office’s recording.

The investigators on the case fed Barnes information about the killing, even showing him crime scene photos, and he adjusted his story to match their demands, according to the petition.

“When Mr. Barnes said he did not think anything had been used to bind the victim’s hands or feet, the PCSO investigators told him: “Think real hard. Duct tape,'” the petition reads. The man was high on methamphetamine and sleep-deprived during the eight-hour interrogation, according to the petition.

Barnes recanted his confession three months later in a letter to his attorney, then wrote another letter reversing his position again 10 days after that. He had, in that 10-day window, decided to take a deal in which he would plead guilty to second-degree murder and be sentenced to 30 years in prison — avoiding the mandatory life sentence that would come with a first-degree murder conviction. As part of the deal, he was required to testify against Lyn-Darr during her jury trial.

Lyn-Darr maintained her innocence from the beginning and said she was in Denver at the time of the killing. She was convicted at trial after Barnes testified against her. Prosecutors zeroed in on Lyn-Darr as a suspect after she attempted to cash a check stolen from the victim four days after his death; she said Wilkerson gave her the checks, and that she did not know where he had gotten them.

Pueblo County District Court vacated Lyn-Darr’s convictions in 2025, finding that there was “no reliable evidence” tying her to the homicide. Barnes testified during the post-conviction proceedings that he’d falsely implicated Lyn-Darr, and the judge noted significant evidence that his confession was false.

“Everything about the crime that he described in his confession was either provided to him by the police, is uncorroborated by any other evidence, or is actually contradicted by other evidence,” the judge wrote in an 18-page order erasing Lyn-Darr’s convictions.

Barnes remains incarcerated and his conviction stands, court and prison records show, but he filed a petition for post-conviction relief in March and his case has been reopened. His attorney did not return a request for comment Tuesday.

A fourth person who pleaded guilty in connection with Piserchio’s killing, Brandon Armijo, has also claimed innocence. He pleaded guilty in 2012 to aggravated robbery in exchange for the dismissal of all other charges and was sentenced to 24 years in prison — a term that ran concurrently with a 21-year prison sentence he was already serving for unrelated crimes when he pleaded guilty in the Piserchio attack, .

He has since been released on parole and his criminal case appeared to be closed.

Few payouts under 2013 law

Lynn-Darr is one of only a small number of people who have sought compensation under the 2013 law, records show. Only three have received payments.

Robert Dewey, who was wrongfully convicted in 1996 of murder and rape in the death of 19-year-old Jacie Taylor in Palisade, was cleared by DNA evidence in 2012 and set free after nearly 18 years in prison, was the first to receive compensation under the Colorado Exoneration Act. He was paid nearly $1.2 million between 2013 and 2017, according to the judicial records. His case inspired the law.

Clarence Moses-El, who was wrongly convicted of a 1987 rape in Denver and sentenced to 48 years in prison, received $1.9 million in 2019 after spending 28 years incarcerated. His conviction was tossed in 2015 and he was acquitted during a second trial in 2016.

Klein and Johnson also represented Moses-El. Klein on Tuesday remembered when he realized Moses-El would receive the compensation.

“It was a moment that felt good for everyone involved,” Klein said. “For the innocent person to get compensation for what he went through, and for the government to acknowledge the wrong that had been done and try to do something to right it.”

The third person compensated under the law, Anthony Fitts, received $46,000 in 2020. Fitts spent eight months in prison after he to a 2017 sexual assault in La Plata County. His conviction was vacated after the of assault and testified that the encounter was consensual, court records show.

Since 2019, eight people have filed petitions for compensation, including Lyn-Darr and Fitts, according to records kept by the Colorado Attorney General’s Office, which did not have records of petitions between 2013 and 2018, before Weiser took office. Over those seven years, three petitions were denied, Fitts’ was granted, one petition was withdrawn and three cases are still pending.

That number could soon increase. Stephen Martinez, 58, who was released from prison last week after his murder conviction was overturned in a 1998 shaken baby case, will seek compensation under the act, his attorney, Jeanne Segil, said Tuesday. Martinez, who spent 27 years in prison, may be eligible for about $1.9 million. He has not yet filed a petition.

Weiser has yet to take a position on Lyn-Darr’s petition, but his office opposes compensation in the two other pending cases, brought by Traci Lundstrom and Clayton Hood.

Lundstrom, who killed her husband during a fight in 2009 but saw her conviction vacated in 2023 after prosecutors conceded she acted in self-defense, is seeking $140,000 for the eight months she spent in jail and her years on probation. She previously used the name Traci Housman.

Weiser’s office argued in court filings that Lundstrom is not eligible for compensation because she is not “factually innocent” of the crime, but legally innocent. State law allows compensation only for petitioners who can show they are factually innocent — that they did not do the actions that resulted in their conviction.

“While Ms. Lundstrom alleged, and the District Attorney agreed, that she is legally not guilty of the crime charged because she had a valid claim of self-defense, she does not allege that she is factually innocent, i.e., that she did not participate in the conduct underlying the charges,” a state petition to dismiss reads.

A judge agreed with Weiser’s office and dismissed Lundstrom’s petition in 2025; she is appealing.

Weiser’s office is also opposing a petition for compensation filed by Hood, who was convicted in 2021 of sexual assault on a child and unlawful sexual contact, saw that conviction overturned, and then was acquitted during a second trial. He filed a petition in December seeking $210,000 for the three years he spent incarcerated.

Hood’s first conviction was overturned in 2024 after the Colorado Court of Appeals found that the trial judge wrongly blocked defense attorneys from presenting evidence that another male’s DNA was found on the victim’s body. That DNA did not match Hood. He was acquitted in a second trial in 2025, during which the DNA evidence was presented.

In a response opposing his petition for compensation, attorneys in Weiser’s office argued that Hood’s acquittal does not show actual innocence. They noted that the DNA evidence did not exclude Hood as the perpetrator of the attack and that there is circumstantial evidence that he committed the crime for which he was found not guilty.

“The reversal of Hood’s conviction and subsequent acquittal do not constitute a finding of actual innocence,” the response reads.

The creation by , 35250 E. U.S. 50, stars a secret sausage recipe developed by Musso-Marino’s , an immigrant from Sicily. He passed it down to her grandfather, Henry George Musso, who passed it down to her father, Henry Carl Musso.

The latter Henry and his Italian-American wife, Barbara Lee, decided to open the restaurant in 1991. Musso-Marino was next in line to learn the recipe.

So, you could say that generations of Musso hands shaped the sausage patty now found tucked into a homemade bun and served with a slathering of Pueblo green chile, lettuce, tomato and the customer’s choice of Provolone, American or Swiss cheese.

The Musso family counts as a living example of Pueblo’s longstanding Italian heritage. The city’s cuisine is largely colored by the influence of immigrants from Italy and the island off its coast, Sicily. They started in the 1850s, heading to Pueblo for jobs in the farming, smelting and steel industries, with The Colorado Fuel and Iron Co. employing many.

However, Italians weren’t the only ones making the journey.

“Immigrants and domestic migrants flocked to Pueblo to work in the mill, making it one of Colorado’s most diverse cities,” reports. “Irish, Italians, Germans, Slovenians, Serbs, Croats, Greeks, and Mexicans all worked and made homes there.”

Today’s food scene pays respect to the city’s history. For example, Fuel & Iron Food Hall operates out of the former Holmes Hardware Building at 400 S. Union Ave.

But one ingredient has remained at the heart of Pueblo’s fare: green chile, which has grown in the area since the 19th century, according to . Decades of cultivation resulted in a local strain. The describes it as a “thicker and spicier” pepper, and it’s in constant competition with New Mexico’s more famous Hatch chiles.

Pueblo’s peppers typically grow from July through October. They’re harvested in the late summer, and then bushelfuls are shipped to metro Denver to be sold at chile stands, groceries and farmers markets. Most are roasted before being used, and the final product adds a zing to savory meals like pasta and quesadillas. Henry Carl Musso has been described by The Pueblo Chieftain as “.”

Culinary traditions that use chiles, including the sausage sandwich and the “slopper” (another Pueblo creation), are gradually catching on outside of the city, but they haven’t been wholeheartedly embraced by the state — yet. An attempt at serving a Pueblo-inspired menu at in Denver’s LoDo neighborhood flopped after its opening in 2022.

Whether their delicacies are widely received by the public or not, Pueblo restaurateurs are busy keeping up with demand at home.

Sicilian sausage sandwich

Outside of Musso’s Restaurant, a sign beckons drivers from the road: “Musso’s homemade Sicilian sausage sandwiches.” Since opening day, the best-seller has had a place on the menu.

Musso-Marino tries to entice customers with daily specials, but they prefer tried and true favorites. The sentiment aligns with the restaurant’s time capsule aesthetic.

In late August, Musso-Marino took a momentary break from her duties to gaze at a photograph hanging on the wall: one of her and her older brother, Carl Jr. Musso, in a corn field. With tears in her eyes, her voice caught in her throat as she reminisced on her “farmer’s daughter” upbringing, growing up alongside the sweet corn and strawberries.

She spent mornings picking peppers and green beans at in Vineland — an inheritance passed down alongside the secret recipe. Musso-Marino attended Pueblo County High School, which sits across the street from the restaurant.

She considered careers in nursing and criminal justice. Ultimately, she took over the restaurant from her father. Meanwhile, her brother and nephew handle nearby Musso Farms, which spans around 150 acres — and is just a five-minute drive from Musso’s Restaurant.

“My dad was my role model, and he’s the one that taught me a lot,” Musso-Marino said. “After we opened this restaurant, I knew this was my place to be.”

Over the past three decades, Musso-Marino has grappled with rising prices and the impacts of the COVID-19 pandemic, but she and her husband, Rocky Marino, continue pushing forward, honoring their shared Italian heritage.

And her father still makes daily appearances, stopping by each morning.

Other restaurants in Pueblo offer similar sandwiches with sausage and locally-grown peppers, but Musso-Marino called the Sicilian sausage sandwich “a Musso thing.”

Her other best-seller is the slopper: an open-faced sandwich smothered with pork green chile. Musso’s Sicilian slopper features Sicilian sausage as the protein, whereas Musso’s special slopper includes a cheeseburger instead.

However, the lore behind that dish is better told over at Gray’s Coors Tavern and at The Sunset Inn Bar and Grill, Musso-Marino admitted.

Sloppers at Gray’s Coors Tavern

, 515 W. 4th St., was so busy on a recent Wednesday lunch rush that not a single empty space remained in its adjacent parking lot. Inside, the tavern glowed with the light of neon signs: Bud Light, Coors Light, Michelob Ultra.

At the bar, regulars scarfed down their meals and watched a football game on a TV mounted on the wall. Next to it sat a shelf of helmets — each representing a local high school team.

Siblings Gary Zerfas and Carrie Fetty sat across from each other in a booth. Their parents, Gary and Carolyn Gray, purchased the joint in 1982 with their nephew, Don. In 2018, Zerfas, Fetty and their brother, Dean Gray, bought Don’s half of the business.

But the tavern existed long before the Grays entered the picture. It first opened in 1934 as a place for Coors Brewing Co. to sell its beer (and only its beer) — a move orchestrated by brewer Adolf Coors II himself, according to some tellings, both oral and written. Coors may have had his hand in the naming and opening of several other Colorado bars as well.

One of his employees, Adolf Otterstien, traveled to Pueblo from the brewery in Golden to help set up the pub. The pair decided to utilize an existing bar: Schaffer’s, which also operated as a brothel. They partnered with a local, Johnnie Greco, and Johnnie’s Coors Tavern was born.

It was under Greco that the slopper came to be. Local accounts date its creation to the 1950s. According to the folks at Gray’s Coors Tavern, business owner Herb Casebeer asked Greco for a burger smothered in red chili, and he dubbed it “a slopper.”

After the Grays took up the gauntlet, the business became a family affair. While each of their three children pursued their own careers — Zerfas in police work, Fetty and Gray in education — the trio gravitated back to Gray’s Coors Tavern.

The establishment is now known for its green chile sloppers. Served in a bowl, the open-faced cheeseburger is drowned in a smorgasbord of Pueblo green chile, fries and chopped onions.

It’s the top seller “by a long shot,” Zerfas said. For him, it comes down to the green chile, which the cook makes in-house daily.

“It’s word of mouth, really,” Zerfas said. “People hear about a slopper; they want to come down to Pueblo, and we’re the place to go.”

Greco spread word of the slopper as far as Hawai’i, reports, and television fame helped build the dish’s reputation.

In 2010, the Travel Channel’s traveled to Pueblo to pit Gray’s Coors Tavern and The Sunset Inn against each other in a battle royale over sloppers.

Sloppers at The Sunset Inn

The spot that took gold: The Sunset Inn, at 2808 Thatcher Ave.

Gerda Chavez has owned the bar and grill for 44 years. She first moved to the U.S. from Germany after marrying her late husband, Charles, who served in the Army.

In her home country, she was used to eating schnitzel and bratwurst sausage, with dumplings, red cabbage and sauerkraut on the side. Once Chavez resettled in Pueblo, her mother-in-law taught her how to cook Mexican-American food.

Chavez’s spouse used to work for Coors distributing, then he noticed that the Sunset Inn was for lease. Charles decided to pursue the business venture as a means of providing his family with financial security.

A decade later, the patriarch began serving food and set up a small kitchen in 1990.

The Sunset Inn serves both its famous green chile slopper and red chili slopper, which incorporates red chili beans.

Originally, the bar only fit about 40 people, Chavez said, “but, sometimes, 110 used to come in.” In 2003, the pair bought the property and expanded it.

Then came Food Wars, which put the city “on the map for the sloppers,” Chavez added.

And as always, in Pueblo, you can’t forget the green chile.

“There’s no other place growing it — or being as tasty — as it is here,” Chavez said.

Roughly one in 30 million lobsters is orange because of a genetic mutation that prevents encoded proteins, aquarium officials said in a news release. By comparison, around one in 2 million lobsters is blue, according to the .

The orange lobster was spotted by a Red Lobster dishwasher who was unpacking a shipment of the crustaceans on Friday, . He alerted the restaurant¶¶Ňőap leadership, who then started looking for a new home for the rare lobster.

Restaurant staff quickly fell in love with the animal and named him “Crush,” after the Denver Bronco’s legendary Orange Crush defense, said Downtown Aquarium General Curator Ryan Herman.

“We’re hoping he’s on exhibit in time for the regular season and that he brings them good luck this season,” Herman said.

Crush will be in quarantine for the next 30 days to ensure he doesn’t bring in anything that could harm his new habitat, Herman said. Once he’s checked out by a veterinarian, Crush will live in the Lurkers exhibit, part of the At The Wharf exhibit chain.

Crush arrived around 2 p.m. Wednesday and already has a host of new fans in aquarium staff who want to visit him in quarantine, Herman said.

“His presence has brought a lot of smiles to people’s faces,” he said.

More than 40 full-time and part-time employees will lose their jobs with the Aug. 12 closure of the printing center. Managers broke the news to employees in an afternoon meeting.

“I recognize this is a difficult time,” PMM General Manager Jill Stravolemos said. “I have tremendous respect and appreciation for the talented production employees and their many years of service. Decisions such as this are challenging. Preserving community journalism is our mission. However, strategic decisions must be made to ensure our future.”

PMM is a subsidiary of ¶¶Ňőap, which also owns The Denver Post. The Longmont Times-Call, Loveland Reporter-Herald, Greeley Tribune, Broomfield Enterprise and Colorado Hometown Weekly are among the PMM newspapers printed in Berthoud.

In recent years, high production costs and a shortage of skilled press operators have presented challenges for PMM’s printing plant, with a press malfunction affecting production over several days in late December and again this weekend causing delayed delivery of several newspapers.

The closure will come one year after Gannett shuttered its Pueblo Chieftain printing operation and moved the printing and packaging of the Chieftain to The Denver Post. The Chieftain reported in 2023 that Gannett had faced “a daunting number of costly capital improvements to the presses in Pueblo.”

The National Trust for Local News announced this spring that it would end its contract with the Denver Post and PMM and move printing of its two dozen Colorado Community Media publications to a different facility.

In addition, the Aspen Daily News moved its printing from PMM to USA Printing Company in Gypsum, Colo., earlier this month.

“The strategic changes made by two of our commercial partners, the challenge of recruiting skilled press operators and the need for significant and costly press upgrades forced our hand,” Stravolemos said. “The Denver production team has successfully and reliably printed the Boulder Daily Camera and the Cañon City Daily Record for years. I’m confident they’ll do a great job.”

Lehman Communications christened the $20 million Berthoud plant and its new MAN Roland press in 2009. The plant employed 78 full-time and part-time employees at the time. In 2011, Lehman was sold to Prairie Mountain, and soon thereafter PMM moved the production of its Eastern Colorado weeklies to the 60,000-square-foot Berthoud facility.

Regrettably, Mayor Heather Graham did not write those words, or any of the words in the opinion column, although she told reporters that she read the writing and agreed to put her name on the work.

I want to take this opportunity toclarify that The Denver Post expects the byline on anything we publish, whether that is a news story or a column, to reflect who actually wrote the piece.  Certainly, there is room for collaboration on opinion columns – including dual bylines and seeking input from colleagues and media relations experts.

Reporters for the and the discovered that Graham had not written the column after using the state’s open records law to request emails from the mayor about the column, which also was published in the Chieftain.

Emails between Graham and a lobbyist working for EVRAZ, an international company that owns the steel mill in Pueblo, showed that a lobbyist, Sean Duffy, wrote the piece and presented it to Graham for her to put her name on.

The column opposed two air-quality bills and made a point to say the bills were written by special interest groups rather than lawmakers. That is ironic because Graham’s op-ed was written by a special interest group — owners of a steel mill that could be regulated — rather than by a mayor concerned for the jobs of her constituents.

The column included compelling phrases like: “I, like other small business owners, don’t need to read the news to know when plants reduce shifts, or are forced into layoffs. In our case, we count the empty seats, and we, along with our workers, feel the reduced income.”

Graham responded to the email draft saying, “This is fantastic, sounds just like me.”

Duffy, who I have worked with for years as both a reporter and now as an opinion editor, submitted the column to me. I selected the piece for many reasons, including that it expressed a strong opinion on Colorado issues that would be of interest to our readers. I knew, Duffy, who works with Shamrock Strategies, had worked with Graham on the op-ed and I knew he likely solicited the op-ed as part of his work as a lobbyist opposed to the legislation.

Graham told a reporter for the Chieftain that this is common practice – nothing to see here.

“This is something that frequently happens with public officials, that you have people who are, you know, much better writers than yourself put together an op-ed. … I think as long as your ideas come along in it, and it’s something that you can back, I think it’s completely acceptable and it happens with all elected officials,” Graham said.

Graham may be right, that elected officials frequently put their names on things written by lobbyists, campaign donors or other special interests, but I suspect her blasé attitude about it has more to do with her lack of experience in public office than her grasp of what other public figures submit as their own writing.

I want to state firmly that the expectation at The Denver Post is that pieces submitted to us have been drafted by the named author. As long as I’ve been the editor of The Post¶¶Ňőap opinion pages, I’ve known city council members, waiters, U.S. senators and engineers who agonize over their writing. Sometimes the writing is not the best, but I’d take an imperfect authentic voice on these pages over sterilized talking points any day. There is a difference between a staffer paid by an elected official helping with drafts and edits and a special interest sending over a completed copy for cursory review.

I’m going to do a better job notifying readers when columns have been submitted on behalf of someone by a third party, and I hope Colorado’s elected officials will be certain they are writing their own words.

Megan Schrader is the editor of The Denver Post opinion pages.

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Employees were informed Tuesday that their jobs would be eliminated, with layoffs set to begin around Aug. 14, although that might be stretched out to a 13-day period beyond that date. Two employees will be kept until Oct. 15.

“As a result of this closing, all employees in the production operation at the Pueblo facility will be permanently separated from employment,” Carla Gillespie, a human resources executive with Gannett, wrote in the letter.

About half the jobs involve inserters and mailroom workers, followed by press operators and technicians and some delivery positions. There are no bumping rights, meaning the displaced workers won’t have priority when it comes to applying for other openings within Gannett, the nation’s largest newspaper group.

The printing plant, 825 W. 6th St., will be put up for sale, and printing transferred to The Denver Post facility in Adams County, according to a statement from the Pueblo News Guild.

“The decision to eliminate 51 jobs in our community and outsource that work to Denver is indefensible. As Colorado’s oldest daily newspaper, the Chieftain has maintained 154 years of reliable news, advertising, editorials and photographs related to important events and milestones in the Pueblo community,” said Tony Mulligan, administrative officer at the Denver Newspaper Guild, which issued the statement.

Mulligan noted that some of those being let go have worked at the paper for more than 25 years doing difficult night shift work.

Gatehouse acquired the Chieftain from the Rawlings family in 2018 following the passing of long-time publisher, editor and owner Robert Hoag Rawlings in 2017 at age 92. Gatehouse, which merged with Gannett in 2019, has taken the Chieftain’s newsroom headcount from more than 30 people to six, Mulligan said, and nationwide, the two companies have slashed their payroll by half since combining.

“The printing press at the Chieftain is one of the only remaining large-scale news presses in Colorado. Dozens of publications from around the region are printed at the Chieftain and we also worry about their future printing availability and costs,” Mulligan said.

Chieftain readers could face delays in receiving their papers if there are traffic problems or inclement weather along the Interstate 25 corridor, he warned. The two printing presses are about 118 miles apart.

The Denver Post previously had printing contracts with Gannett for the Fort Collins Coloradoan and USA Today and has partnered with it on distribution since 2009, said Bill Reynolds, senior vice president of circulation and production at the Post.

“We are always looking for additional commercial print jobs to print here at our Washington Street plant. This gives our employees in the pressroom and mailroom additional hours and they all do a great job in taking care of not only the Denver Post but all of our commercial print clients,” he said.

A man accused of tampering with a voting machine during Colorado’s primary election is mentally incompetent and cannot continue with court proceedings, a judge ruled Thursday.

At the request of Richard Patton’s lawyer and prosecutors, Judge William Alexander also ordered that Patton undergo outpatient mental health treatment in hopes of making him well enough so he can be prosecuted.

The judge’s ruling followed an evaluation by an expert who found that Patton was mentally incompetent. To be considered legally competent to proceed, people accused of crimes must be deemed able to understand proceedings and help in their own defense by being able to communicate with their lawyers.

Patton’s lawyer had requested the evaluation but no details about why have been released. Patton has not been asked to enter a plea yet and the case against him will not resume until he is found to be competent.

Patton was arrested Nov. 3 and later charged with tampering with voting equipment, which state lawmakers this year made a felony punishable by up to three years in prison. It was formerly a misdemeanor offense with a penalty of up to 364 days in jail.

According to his arrest affidavit, Patton showed up to vote in person on the last day of the primary election, June 28. He made some poll workers nervous after asking about what kind of security there was at the voting center because of threats that had been made against election workers. An election worker escorted Patton to a voting machine, showed him how to use it, and he was able to use it to fill out a ballot and print out a marked paper ballot to cast, investigators said.

After Patton voted, a person who went to clean the voting machine discovered an error message saying that a USB device had been detected, according to the affidavit. Other election workers said the security seal on the machine was either damaged or had been tampered with and a USB port pulled out, it said.

Patton denied any wrongdoing in an interview with The Pueblo Chieftain in November. He said he requested help from an election worker when he voted because he is dyslexic and accused the worker of inserting something into the machine.

Chuck Green, a former Denver Post editor and the author of countless columns that ran in the newspaper’s Denver & The West section, died Sunday.

Green, 75, died after a short illness, said Joyce Anderson, his long-time secretary at The Post.

“He just knew the city so well and knew so many people that he had a lot of people that would give him leads,” Anderson said.

Green, who delivered The Post as a boy in Longmont, went on to work for the newspaper for 34 years, including stints as a reporter covering City Hall, the governor’s office, the state legislature and more, according to a family obituary.

During the 1970s and ’80s, he frequently appeared on television, according to his family obituary, serving as an analyst for NBC and, for two years, doing live commentary on Denver7’s 10 p.m. newscast.

He was the editorial page editor when he was appointed in August 1988 to serve as vice president of news. Within two months, Green was named editor and worked in that role until November 1989.

Green then returned to his role as editorial page editor. He would finish his career at the newspaper as a well-read columnist, whose work — like most columnists — was either loved or reviled by readers. He retired in May 2002 in a contentious departure that generated headlines in other local media.

“Three times a week, Chuck offered his thoughts on the world around him — current affairs, the beauty of our state and the joy of having a dog,” said Lee Ann Colacioppo, The Post’s executive editor, who worked with Green from 1999 to 2002. “He made people mad, he made people think, he addressed hot topics and he wrote about the mundane matters of everyday life. His voice became part of the personality of The Post.”

Green and his wife Susan later moved to Pueblo West, which is where he died, Anderson said. He wrote columns for the Pueblo Chieftain while living there.

Those who worked with Green remember him as a colorful character.

He was an animal lover and often brought his pet birds to the office, Anderson said. One bird, Reggie, would spend time with Anderson.

“Chuck would carry them around under his coat and Reggie would stay there quietly,” she said.

Anderson also recounted a story in which Vice President Al Gore was coming to the newsroom for a roundtable discussion with editors. His advance team toured the newsroom and commented on the long conference room table that sat 22 people. The woman leading the advance team said they couldn’t use the table.

“She said this is a roundtable discussion and this is rectangle,” Anderson recalled.

After the vice president praised his staff during the meeting, Green asked about the table.

“I thought, ‘Oh my God,” Anderson said.

Green wrote a column about it and it was picked up by conservative commentator Rush Limbaugh, Anderson said.

“We had good times,” she said.

Green is survived by his wife Susan Green, who requests privacy. His remains will be cremated and there will be no services, as he requested.

Gardner, a Yuma Republican who is trailing in every poll, is the better debater, and Republicans are hopeful he can gain ground during this month’s forums. On Friday night, the freshman senator pressed Hickenlooper on two ethics violations, his refusal to comply with a subpoena in June and an ensuing contempt citation.

“This is someone who thinks it’s OK to take jets to Switzerland and Italy. Well, not everybody in Pueblo is a millionaire or has the ability to do that,” Gardner said. “It’s a very clear contrast between somebody who believes the people of Colorado are first — that’s what I believe — and somebody who believes their own self-interests are first and that they want to go to Washington to line their own pockets.”

Hickenlooper, a Denver Democrat and former governor, spent much of his time on the defensive, pushing back against an almost endless barrage of attacks from Gardner on topics from ethics to energy to his former judicial nominations. Hickenlooper tried to keep the focus on health care, specifically an effort to overturn the Affordable Care Act, a health law Gardner considers unconstitutional.

“Are we really, in the middle of a pandemic, going to strip away health care and protections for people with preexisting conditions?” Hickenlooper said.

The format for Friday’s debate was unusually open, with only a few broad questions asked of the candidates and wide latitude granted in how they answered. Gardner used the format to his advantage, repeatedly attacking Hickenlooper and forcing the former governor to answer accusing questions, putting Hickenlooper on the defensive time and again.

Hickenlooper responded to most of the allegations but at other times shook his head or laughed at the nonstop criticisms of his character. Near the end of the debate, an exasperated Hickenlooper said, “Nothing but attacks and accusations.”

Because the questions to the candidates were vague, Gardner was able to dodge thorny issues, such as how to replace the Affordable Care Act or whether Trump has done a good job as president. Hickenlooper repeatedly tried to tie Gardner to the president, who is unpopular in Colorado.

“The bottom line is, he’s been with Donald Trump 100% of the time,” Hickenlooper said of Gardner. “He and President Trump are side by side … the closest of friends.”

The Friday night debate occurred less than 24 hours after Trump tested positive for COVID-19. As a result, Gardner and Hickenlooper were tested before the debate. Their tests came back negative, allowing the event to occur.

The pandemic was referenced often during the debate but was asked about only in the fourth and final question. Gardner used the question to attack Hickenlooper for not better preparing the state of Colorado for a pandemic. Hickenlooper laughed off the criticism and criticized the Trump administration.

Friday night’s debate, sponsored by the Pueblo Chieftain and moderated by its editor, was the first of four between Gardner and Hickenlooper over the next dozen days. None of the debates will include a live audience, because of the pandemic.

Instead, the two political heavyweights, each of whom has won every election he has competed in, sat in a quiet studio at Pueblo Community College, stayed distanced in accordance with health guidelines, and put on masks immediately after.

The next debate between the two is at 4 p.m. Tuesday on Telemundo, in English and Spanish. That will be followed by one at 5 p.m. , cohosted by The Denver Post and at 6 p.m. Oct. 13.

Lauren Boebert doesn’t have a health care plan, only vague goals and a history of criticizing the Affordable Care Act.

With fewer than 80 days to go before the Nov. 3 election, health care has emerged as a top issue in Colorado’s closely watched 3rd Congressional District. It’s not a big surprise, given that both health insurance and health care are particularly expensive and hard to access on the Western Slope and in other parts of the far-flung district.

It is Boebert, a Republican, who has placed the issue front and center.

“Diane Mitsch Bush is a lying socialist who supports socialized medicine,” the narrator in states. “Nobody likes a liar, Diane. Nobody.”

On at least in 2018, Mitsch Bush, a Democrat, that she supported a single-payer, system in which the government provides health care coverage, rather than private insurers. But on July 29, in Grand Junction, “I don’t support Medicare for All.”

Boebert has seized on that reversal.

“Can you hear her pollsters and political hacks explaining to her she can’t win on her socialized medicine scheme, so she had better just lie about her position and try to scare people about me?” Boebert wrote in Aug. 8.

Mitsch Bush said in a statement Thursday that she has “never supported the elimination of private insurance” but instead supports “allowing people to buy into Medicare or a public option.” During a 2018 debate, however, she touted a specific piece of legislation — , the Expanded and Improved Medicare for All Act — that would “virtually eliminate private medical insurance,” and at least in Congress.

Boebert¶¶Ňőap campaign, meanwhile, says that Chieftain op-ed is the totality of her health care plan at this stage in the race. There are no specifics in the opinion piece, only a series of aspirations: price transparency, protecting people with pre-existing conditions, making health care affordable, increasing access to care.

“I will never vote for legislation that will leave Coloradans without health care coverage,” she wrote.

Protection for people with pre-existing conditions is already required under current law, the decade-old Affordable Care Act. Making health care more affordable, more transparent and more easily accessible are vague goals both political parties strive for with varying success. Nearly all legislation, including the existing Affordable Care Act and Republicans’ ACA repeal efforts, do leave or would leave some Coloradans without health care coverage.

Boebert¶¶Ňőap campaign spokeswoman declined to say whether Boebert believes the ACA, a 2010 health care overhaul colloquially known as Obamacare, should be repealed. But Boebert has repeatedly criticized Rep. Scott Tipton, the Cortez Republican she defeated June 30, for failing to repeal the ACA while in Congress.

“You know, we had an opportunity in 2017 to repeal Obamacare and once again my opponent (Tipton) voted no,” Boebert called “Steel Truth” in May. “He had a chance to put a yes vote to that and he said no and he’s supposed to be a conservative.”

Boebert’s claim was false — the American Health Care Act, a Republican ACA repeal effort, in 2017 — but her remarks make clear that she supports a repeal of Obamacare.

Repealing the Affordable Care Act without a replacement would leave the 159,338 Coloradans who receive health insurance through the state’s ACA marketplace without coverage, among other disruptions to the health care system.

“My opponent has no plan to make health care more affordable for people in the 3rd (District), and instead she wants to take health care away from hundreds of thousands of people during a national health care and economic crisis,” Mitsch Bush said Thursday. “We can’t let that happen.”

Some of Colorado’s highest rates of uninsured people are in northwest Colorado, along the I-70 corridor and in southwest Colorado — all part of the 3rd District, said Linda Gann, a Montrose-based outreach director with Connect for Health Colorado, which oversees the state’s individual insurance marketplace.

“It’s about two things: cost and access,” Gann said. “Both are a problem out here.”

More people on the Western Slope buy their insurance off the individual marketplace than elsewhere in the state, which is more costly than receiving it through an employer, and insurance rates are generally highest there, according to state health care experts.

“There’s usually just one hospital that¶¶Ňőap at all convenient to a town, and that hospital can charge pretty high prices to insurers,” said Joe Hanel , communications director for the nonpartisan Colorado Health Institute.