Author: JENNY DEAM
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New CBI Director Armando Saldate III plans to increase transparency
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On July 25 Armando Saldate III took over as the director of the state’s troubled Colorado Bureau of Investigation amid an unprecedented scandal in the agency’s forensic crime lab, where it was discovered a former employee allegedly compromised and altered DNA evidence in criminal cases for years. CBI has acknowledged finding problems in 1,045 cases…
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Denver police crime lab triples number of cases under review in CBI scandal
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The Denver Police Department’s crime lab has now significantly expanded its review of DNA testing previously done by the Colorado Bureau of Investigation’s troubled forensic lab, bringing the total to more than 1,300 past sexual assault cases in the area. That is more than triple the CBI cases the city’s crime lab said in April…
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How Colorado became the focal point of 14th Amendment efforts to disqualify Trump from the ballot
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The extraordinary Colorado election case now headed for the U.S. Supreme Court to decide if former President Donald Trump is disqualified from the ballot had its humble beginnings three years ago in the Maryland basement office of a self-proclaimed legal nerd. It was around New Year’s Day 2021. Constitutional scholar and University of Maryland law school…
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Colorado court filing disputes accusation that state unlawfully detains the disabled in nursing homes
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The state of Colorado late last week pushed back against the federal government, disputing the allegations by the U.S. Department of Justice that the state discriminates against disabled people by forcing them to languish in nursing homes rather than receiving available care at home. On Sept. 29, the Civil Rights Division filed a sweeping lawsuit…
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Federal lawsuit: Colorado unlawfully detains the disabled in nursing homes
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Louise Apodaca was done waiting. For months she had been pleading with case managers, social workers, disability advocates, care givers, anyone who would listen that she didn’t need or want to be in a nursing home any longer. What was supposed to have been temporary had stretched into years. She wanted to go home. What…
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State health board passes heavier fines for assisted living abuse cases
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The Colorado Board of Health on Wednesday voted unanimously to adopt new, stricter regulations that could increase fines dramatically against assisted-living facilities in cases of preventable death or the serious neglect or abuse of residents. Final approval of the often contentious rule came nearly 18 months after a law to impose stricter fines was passed…
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State Human Services clears Grand Junction nursing home in veteran’s death, leaving widow to decry ‘lack of oversight and accountability’
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The state Department of Human Services has cleared two nurses at a Grand Junction nursing home of suspected caretaker neglect, reversing previous findings by Mesa County in the death of an 83-year-old resident from fatal sepsis, according to a letter from the state shared with The Gazette on Thursday. ? Ernest Griffiths Jr., a U.S.…
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A Colorado veteran needed help. He ended up dead after the VA referred him to a nursing home
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The terrible chain of events began three years ago in Grand Junction when the Veterans Health Administration made a questionable referral for an elderly veteran named Ernest Griffiths Jr. to enter a private-sector nursing home for his dementia care. It ended Feb. 25 with suspected felony neglect after a foot wound went untreated and sepsis…
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‘Families have been let down’: Colorado’s troubling assisted living deaths stir calls for action
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A Colorado lawmaker along with a national advocate for the elderly have called on Gov. Jared Polis and the state’s health department to do more to protect vulnerable assisted living residents following revelations by The Gazette of underreported deaths and a lack of substantial consequences to facilities after tragedies. State Sen. Jessie Danielson, D-Jefferson County,…
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‘Unexplained or suspicious’ deaths pile up among residents of Colorado’s growing assisted-living industry
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Colorado Watch logo Editor’s note: This story is the result of compiling and analyzing nearly five years of occurrence reports submitted to the state by assisted-living facilities, reviewing police records, state Senate committee testimony and court documents. In addition, The Denver Gazette interviewed or received statements from family members of the victims, legal experts, elder…
