Republican House District 21 primary candidate Ray Garcia of Colorado Springs has posted an explanation in the wake of a Nov. 15 article that discussed his background, including a felony conviction from Oklahoma.

Colorado Politics emailed Garcia at noon on Nov. 14 to respond to questions about his history, including thousands of dollars in campaign finance fines tied to previous runs for office, a domestic violence restraining order from Broomfield, a 2006 felony conviction in Oklahoma for firearms possession while under a domestic violence restraining order, and a charge of harassment tied to an incident at a Sonic restaurant in Golden in 2009.

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The article ran on Nov. 15. Later that day, on his Facebook page, Garcia addressed part of incidents reported on: the firearms conviction and the domestic violence restraining order.

Garcia said he was not surprised about the article, that he had been expecting something like it for a long time.

Garcia claimed that when he ran for HD1 in Denver in 2014 he told everyone about his past and showed all the documentation. (He does not list that documentation on his Facebook post.)

With regard to the domestic violence incident, Garcia said in the post that he was in an “abusive relationship with a woman that, I found out later, not only abused me. But the man she was married to before me. And the man she was with after me. Both of them had enough money to fight her; I unfortunately didn’t.”

The woman (identified in Oklahoma court documents as his wife), claimed “I abused her, but a jury found her story ludicrous and vindicated me.”

Prior to the trial, she was given a restraining order by a Broomfield judge whom Garcia claims “was more interested in getting a federally licensed firearms dealer out of business than he was in actually protecting [him], an abused spouse.

“We showed him evidence that she made statements that if I didn’t do as she said she would call the police and get my FFL (federal firearms license) taken away,” which is what happened, Garcia said.

After he was acquitted of the domestic violence charge, Garcia said he went back to the same judge and requested that the restraining order be lifted, “due to the fact that the jury (and not just one judge) said I was not the abuser, but the abused.” The judge refused, Garcia said, and he lost his firearms dealer license and the business “I ran successfully for four years.”

A year later, Garcia said, he was stopped for speeding in Oklahoma. After the officer learned he had a restraining order from Colorado, he asked the woman in the car if he could search the vehicle. She refused, “but they searched it anyway.” The officer found the pistol and rifle the woman had in her car, but charged Garcia with possession of a firearm while under a domestic violence restraining order. “Even though I was not under a domestic violence restraining order,” Garcia writes.

Garcia said the district attorney in Oklahoma “added a couple other fake charges in order to offer me a plea bargain. I fought this for over a year until I could not afford the $15,000 dollars my lawyer required me to pay to go forward with the case.”

Garcia said he found out later his attorney was offered and accepted a job with the same district attorney’s office right after his case was settled. 

“I learned first hand that this country has the best ‘justice system’ money can buy,” Garcia wrote.

Garcia said the worst mistake he ever made was to accept a plea bargain. “It has haunted me ever since,” especially now, “if you are an actual conservative and stand up for the values our country was founded on. Those in power will do everything they can to shoot you down.”

Garcia went on to talk about his effort to fight the Red Flag law . “I am here fighting for your ‘right’ to defend yourself” on the Second Amendment, a right he said he does not have.

Garcia has not responded to another request to comment further.