A Weld County judge violated the state’s law on restitution when he repeatedly increased the amount of money owed to the victim years after the defendant’s conviction, Colorado’s second-highest court has found.

Under the law, judges are permitted to sentence defendants to pay financial restitution to their victims in the future to cover therapy or other treatment. But they must do so “in addition to or in place of a specific amount of restitution.”

Former District Court Judge Thomas J. Quammen ordered Daniel Rigg to pay a specific restitution amount following his sexual assault conviction, but he nonetheless issued a half-dozen more orders increasing Rigg’s restitution payments to cover his victim’s therapy. Quammen believed it was clear that restitution is “always going to be ongoing” for such cases.

But a three-judge panel of the Court of Appeals concluded Quammen’s actions did not comply with the law’s directive for judges to explicitly order ongoing payments at the time of sentencing.

“While we recognize our duty to construe the statute liberally, we decline to construe it so liberally that we allow trial courts to violate its plain language,” wrote Judge Terry Fox in the Oct. 13 opinion.

A jury convicted Rigg in January 2011 of sexual assault on a child, incest and other charges. He received a sentence of 36 years to life in prison.

At Rigg’s sentencing hearing, Quammen asked if the prosecution would request that Rigg pay restitution. The prosecutor responded in the affirmative, but needed time to “finalize” invoices.

“The court finds that there will be restitution in this case,” Quammen said. The prosecution then asked for $4,120 to pay for therapy costs for the victim, the victim’s brother and the victim’s mother. Quammen issued an order on May 13, 2011 requiring Rigg to pay that exact amount.

However, three months later, the district attorney’s office sought an additional $900 in restitution. In September, prosecutors filed another request for money. Between late 2011 and October 2013, the prosecution submitted several more requests for therapy payments, which Quammen granted, bringing Rigg’s total financial obligation to $7,090.

It took until March 14, 2013, however, for Quammen to explicitly order that Rigg’s restitution payments would be ongoing to cover victim treatment, pursuant to state law.

A new lawyer was assigned to Rigg’s case and, upon learning of Quammen’s serial restitution orders, the attorney asked for a hearing.

“I don’t know if there was any finding by the court as to whether or not there would be sort of ongoing restitution,” the lawyer said. “My understanding is that there was not such a finding.”

“Well, I did make such a finding as I find in all of these cases because restitution is always going to be ongoing when you have a victim of a sexual assault on a child who’s in therapy,” Quammen responded. He added that “there is language in those orders that says there is going to be ongoing restitution.”

Turning to the Court of Appeals, Rigg argued state law required Quammen to issue a restitution order at the time of his sentencing. Although Quammen could have indicated that restitution would be ongoing to reimburse the victim’s therapy costs, he did not.

In defending the restitution orders, the government insisted it was understood at the time of the first order that prosecutors would continue to ask for ongoing reimbursement of the victim’s treatment.

“An order is only ‘final” when nothing further remains to be done,” wrote Assistant Attorney General Rebecca L. Williams. “Here, the trial court’s initial order did not explicitly address or resolve the prosecution’s repeated requests for ongoing restitution to cover the victim’s future mental health treatment. Therefore, the order was not conclusive of the issues presented and left more to be done.”

The Court of Appeals acknowledged the prosecution had alerted the judge up front of its intention to seek ongoing restitution.

“But when the court ordered the (prosecution’s) specific amount of restitution without any mention of reserving future restitution, Rigg’s obligation to pay a specific amount, rather than an ongoing amount, became final,” Fox noted.

The appellate panel overturned Quammen’s unlawful restitution orders and directed Rigg to pay the originally-ordered amount of $4,120.

The case is People v. Rigg.