Transcript Wheat Ridge 4.18.13
Wheat Ridge
April 18, 2013
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A Colorado Community Media Publication
ourwheatridgenews.com
Jefferson County, Colorado • Volume 29, Issue 43
Eakins given six years probation Staff Report
Jefferson County Deputy Sheriff Rob Neville helps a woman go through the security checkpoint at the entryway to the court side of the county building at 100 Jefferson County Parkway. Photo by Glenn Wallace
County plays defense Jeffco DA Weir requests added security By Glenn Wallace
gwallace@ourcoloradonews.com First Judicial District Attorney Pete Weir asked the Jefferson County Board of Commissioners for its support in improving security for his staff at a briefing last week. “We’re in a dangerous business,” Weir said, adding the threat seemed real enough, and close enough that there was little time to waste. He specifically cited the shooting death of Tom Clements, executive director of Colorado’s Department of Corrections, on March 19. Weir called Clements a respected colleague and a close personal friend. The suspect in that shooting was a parolee, Evan Spencer Ebel, 28, who was later killed in a car chase and gun fight with law
enforcement in Texas. “Mr. Ebel was prosecuted by my office. It was a Jefferson County Court that first put him away,” Weir said. Ebel’s long rap sheet has its start in Lakewood in 2003 with armed robbery and felony menacing according to court records. His more recent crimes have a Jeffco connection as well. In a grassy field that offers a decent view of the Jefferson County Courthouse, just a five-minute drive away, Ebel is believed to have dumped his murder victim Nathan Collin Leon on March 17. Two days later, Ebel is also suspected of having shot and killed Clements at his Monument home. Investigators are still looking into whether the killing of Clements was an ordered assassination, or if Ebel was acting alone. Ebel was on parole at the time of the killings, and had spent the last few years in the Colorado prison system, where he became associated with the violent 211 white supremacist gang. The possible assassinations of a district attorney and an assistant district attorney
in Texas have at least raised the possibility that prison gangs have chosen to target members of the justice system who helped put them behind bars, or help keep them there. “The problem is these dangerous folks also have dangerous associates, who are not in custody,” Weir said. Weir added that local law enforcement agencies have begun making extra patrols around the houses of some of staff residences. Among Weir’s suggestions: Designated parking near a secure “County Employee’s Only” entrance, a secure shuttle bus service for DA staff, added video surveillance of the county courthouse grounds. Weir said a few other security ideas were being discussed with county staff, but would require time and money to be planned and implemented. The county sheriff’s department, which is responsible for courthouse security, is aware of the situation and has taken some steps to improve security, department Public Information Officer Jacki Kelley said.
Judith Marie Eakins, 53, of Wheat Ridge, was in court last week to be sentenced to six years’ probation for stealing over $32,000 from her 92-year-old mother, Dorothy Morvay, who was living in a nursing home. Eakins entered a guilty plea in December for attempted theft of an at-risk person over $500. According to investigators, Eakins moved her mother to a retirement community with nursing care in 2009. Beginning in 2001, Eakins stopped payment of Moray’s care at the nursing facility, instead depositing her mother’s social security and pension income to her own bank account. Eaking had put her mother in the nursing home without telling her brother. She then claimed to be an only child, and gave instructions that her brother was a relative who was to have “no contact” Eakins with Moray. Eakins’ brother, not knowing where his mother had been taken, filed a missing person’s report, only to be told that he was not allowed contact with Moray once she was found. By the time Eakins fraud had been discovered, Moray’s dementia was so bad that she no longer recognized her own son. She died in March. The District Attorney’s office called for Eakins to serve a prison sentence for her crimes, but was given a lesser sentence. Stealing from her own mother is not the extent of Eakins alleged crimes. In January Eakins was arrested by the Golden Police, and charged with embezzling as much as $156,000 from Golden High School. Eakins worked at GHS for 13 years, working in several positions before becoming the school’s financial secretary in 2008. An internal audit in 2012 revealed a trend of missing funds from school event ticket sales over a three-year period. Eakins is currently scheduled for a jury trial on those theft and embezzlement charges this fall.
Mountain Phoenix campus grows with students By Sara Van Cleve
svancleve@ourcoloradonews. com As Mountain Phoenix Community School grows, its campus is growing too. The Waldorf-inspired Jefferson County public charter school has 465 students from 10 counties in preschool through eighth grade. Mountain Phoenix, 4725 Miller St., been in Wheat Ridge for two years and has grown significantly since its move from Coal Creek Canyon. On April 12, the school hosted
a groundbreaking ceremony for its new expansion — a building for sixth through eighth grades. “All of the middle school will have its own building,” said Principal Donna Newberg-Long. “Our fifth graders are graduating into the building next year.” The building will have six classrooms — four upstairs and two downstairs — and two band and orchestra rooms; a combined gym and auditorium has also been proposed for future construction. “The band and orchestra right now are housed in the primary school, which has created a lot
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of noise, so we’re looking forward to it moving out,” Newberg-Long said. The classrooms are phase one of the project and is being funded through a grant provided by Oppenheimer and Company. “Because of our large growth and the fact we have pre-K support from the bottom up, Oppenheimer and Company was very interested in us and the Waldorf approach is something they felt was very special,” she said. “Being in the classrooms and seeing what we do, they this is really special and there’s a light shining here.” Mountain Phoenix received a $6.35 million bond; $3.25 million was used to purchase the 4.3 acres of campus property — the former home of Foothills Academy — and the rest is being used to build the expansion. The first phase is expected to be done in late August and students moved into the new building by Sept. 1. The first phase is expected to
be completed by Himmelman Construction by late August with students moving in by Sept. 1. Classes for the 2013-14 school year begin Aug. 19. “We have alternate classroom spaces for the fall just in case,” Newberg-Long said. “We do a lot of campouts and field trips, so some nice campouts and field trips at the beginning of the year will fit into the curriculum too.” The second phase of the expansion - which includes finishing the upstairs classrooms and building the combine gym and auditorium - will be completed later after additional fundraising and grant applications are completed. “It’s very important,” she said. “We need the space.” Completing the classrooms are the first priority of phase two with the gym as the second priority. “We mostly stay outside, even if it’s snowy,” Newberg-Long said. “Even our little preschoolers dress warmly and play in the snow. We get outside as much as possible. We feel nature is a big part of what
we do to explore and look at science.” Waldorf-inspired education in the public sector has become increasingly popular, NewbergLong said. Three new public charters for Waldorf-inspired schools across the state have been created and will open to students in the fall. “We have very dedicated teachers here and the education is tremendous,” she said. “Children are taught to draw and paint, we have performing arts and a strong music program, but we also care about academics. We have adopted the common core standards and are working to align them with the Waldorf Foundation.” For more information about Mountain Phoenix, visit www. mountainphoenix.org.
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