Thirty Years Ago This Week: State Rep. Charlie Duke, R-Monument, cancelled his plans to deliver the keynote speech at the forth annual Jubilation Celebration in Bakersfield, California, after the Colorado Anti-Defamation League had provided Duke with information on co-scheduled speaker Louis R. Beam.

Beam was a former leader of the Aryan Nations and grand dragon of the Texas Knights of the Ku Klux Klan. Beam was also charged, but later acquitted, of seditious conspiracy to overthrow the government in 1998.

In previous years the Jubilation Celebration tables were full of anti-Jewish and anti-Black literature, mock AK-47 displays and instructional pamphlets on do-it-yourself explosives.

Colorado ADL Director Sam Rosenthal told reporters that he had called Duke to warn him that his appearance with Beam and other slated speakers would very likely be construed as racist but that Duke “wasn’t easily convinced.”

“Duke said he’d heard that Louis Beam wouldn’t be attending … and appearing on the same program with white supremacists didn’t mean he endorsed their views,” Rosenthal said. “But it would be construed that way if Duke appeared on stage with a grand dragon of the Ku Klux Klan and a holocaust denier.”

Duke said he had accepted the speaking engagement after getting in contact with California state Sen. Don Rogers, R-Tehachati, and said that he wasn’t aware of any racist or anti-semitic agenda. But Rogers authored a column for The Jubilee, a Midpines, California newspaper that sponsors the Jubilation Celebration, and past issues of The Jubilee were full of racist content.

“The Jubilee was also associated with the Christian Identity Movement. They believe that white people are the ‘chosen people’ and Jews are satanic,” said Steven Gardiner of the Coalition for Human Dignity in Portland, Oregon. “Jews are considered imposters in a conspiracy to destroy the white race.”

Duke refused to give a comment to The Colorado Statesman for the story.

Twenty Years Ago: Pasha Cowan, the owner of Best Variety, a Broomfield escort service, testified before a grand jury investigating allegations that prostitutes were provided to potential University of Colorado football players.

Cowan testified that her organization was “an escort service for prostitution” and alleged that she provided CU recruiting assistant Nathan Maxcey with prostitutes. Maxcey denied the allegations although he admitted to availing himself of the services of prostitutes. Maxcey was indicted for soliciting prostitutes along with other charges.

Best Variety and other escort services operated under Article 25.5 of Title 12 of the Colorado Revised Statutes. The law, sponsored by Rep. Laura DeHerrera, D-Denver, and Sen. Paul Sandoval, D-Denver, had been passed in 1980 and had not been subject to a Sunset review to determine whether prostitution was an occupation that needed to be licensed.

By law, escort companies were supposed to provide each patron with a written contract that stated that “prostitution is illegal … and that both parties may be punished and no act of prostitution shall be performed in relation to the services contracted.”

Violation of the escort law contract carried a misdemeanor penalty of up to one year in county jail and up to $5,000 in fines.

“That’s more than the penalty for soliciting a prostitute,” wrote former state Rep. Jerry Kopel, D-Denver, who was a co-sponsor of the 1980 licensing bill. “This law needs amending. For example, the present law doesn’t bar persons with prior criminal activity “may” be the basis of refusal to license, but it does not say “shall.””

Rachael Wright is the author of the Captain Savva Mystery series, with degrees in Political Science and History from Colorado Mesa University, and is a contributing writer to Colorado Politics and The Colorado Springs Gazette.