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WEEK OF JANUARY 30, 2025

VOLUME 123 | ISSUE 9

Locals among riot cases pardoned by Trump Government reverses course on prosecutions for Jan. 6 insurrection BY ELLIS ARNOLD AND JANE REUTER EARNOLD@COLORADOCOMMUNITYMEDIA.COM

Doris, also known as DJ, were going through their morning routine at their home on Bighorn Court in what is now the City of Lone Tree. DJ Dean was washing up when she heard her husband call out for her from the garage. A masked suspect led Roger Dean back into the house. DJ Dean saw her husband sitting on the bed at gunpoint. DJ Dean’s hands were then bound, duct tape was put over her face and she was taken to another room. The suspect demanded to know how much money was in their savings.

Within hours after his second inauguration, President Donald Trump moved to pardon or drop the cases of people charged in relation to the riot at the United States Capitol on Jan. 6, 2021, and Jefferson County and Douglas County men are among them. Patrick Montgomery, 52, of the Roxborough area, had been sentenced to prison after he pleaded guilty to assaulting law enforcement during the breach of the Capitol, a news release from the federal Department of Justice said. A Kittredge man, Jeffrey Sabol, had been sentenced to prison on three felonies for offenses tied to the Capitol breach. Matthew Melsen had been arrested for allegedly assaulting law enforcement and other charges amid the breach of the Capitol, a news release from the federal Department of Justice said. Melsen is described as a Wheat Ridge resident in the release. The riot disrupted a joint session of Congress that convened to ascertain and count the electoral votes related to the 2020 presidential election.

SEE TERM, P4

SEE PARDONED, P7

Tamara Dean Harney holds a photo of her father at the Douglas County Courthouse on Jan. 16 after a District Court judge sentenced a man to 32 years PHOTO BY HALEY LENA in the Department of Corrections in the slaying of her father, Roger Dean.

At long last, cold case brings prison term Douglas County man was killed during 1985 home invasion BY HALEY LENA HLENA@COLORADOCOMMUNITYMEDIA.COM

For 39 years, Tamara Harney never gave up hope that her father’s murderer would one day sit behind bars. A piece of her has been missing for 39 years, she said. “My life has never been the same,” Harney told Douglas County District Court Judge Victoria Klingensmith. “It will

never be the same.” On Jan. 16, Klingensmith sentenced 67-year-old Michael Shannel Jefferson to 32 years in the Department of Corrections for conspiracy to commit murder in the first degree. Roger Dean, Harney’s father, was shot and killed in a home invasion on Nov. 21, 1985. Harney knew her father as a person who put the needs and wants of others above himself, she said. He was not just a businessman, he was a family man with a tender and passionate heart. He loved the Denver Broncos, liked to dance, had a contagious laugh and loved to have a good time.

“He didn’t deserve the end that he had,” Harney said in a press conference following Jefferson’s sentencing. “My family didn’t deserve to go through everything that they did.” Inside the courtroom

Harney’s loved ones and law enforcement sat shoulder-toshoulder in the courtroom on Jan. 16 at the Douglas County Courthouse in Castle Rock, including past and present sheriffs. Inside the courtroom, the prosecution, Harney and two former sheriffs recalled a November day nearly 40 years ago. On the morning of Nov. 21, 1985, Roger Dean and his wife,

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