By Gail Binkly

A trooper with the Colorado State Patrol who sided with the unsuccessful candidate in the last sheriff’s election is now accusing Sheriff Joey Chavez of engaging in a retaliatory campaign to keep him out of Cortez.

Trooper Steve Nowlin, who has worked for the Cortez Police Department, Montezuma County Sheriff’s Department, and state patrol, has notified the county through his attorney that he is seeking $150,000 in damages for "significant reputational injury." No actual lawsuit has been filed.

Chavez said Monday that, for legal reasons, he is somewhat constrained in the comments he can make regarding the claim, but did say that much of the information contained in the notice of claim was erroneous.

"Fifty to 75 percent of that (document) is not factual," Chavez said.

In a "Notice of Claim" dated Sept. 9 and received by the county Sept. 14, Nowlin and his attorney, Marc Colin of Bruno, Bruno & Colin in Denver, presented a two-page narrative describing the alleged events that led to the claim for damages.

According to the document, Nowlin was a lieutenant with the Montezuma County Sheriff’s Department from August 1993 through August 1996 and supervised Chavez, then a deputy. In August 1996, Nowlin decided to go work for the state patrol, for which he had previously worked at one point in his career, and was assigned to the Castle Rock troop. A year later he was transferred to Silverton.

When Cortez Patrol Officer Dale Claxton was shot to death by armed men on May 29, 1998, sheriff’s Detective Sgt. Todd Martin was seriously wounded during the unsuccessful pursuit of the assailants. During his lengthy recovery, another man was named to fill Martin’s position as sergeant of detectives.

Martin, a nine-year veteran who had been planning to leave the sheriff’s department for the state patrol when he was shot, was vocal in his belief that he had not been treated well by the sheriff’s department, including Chavez, then a captain.

Martin supported Republican candidate Steve Penhall in the bitterly contested sheriff’s race that took place that fall, while many other members of the sheriff’s department supported Chavez, the Democratic candidate, who ultimately won.

Nowlin also supported Penhall, and wrote to the Montezuma Valley Journal/Cortez Sentinel stating that he believed Martin, who later left the sheriff’s department and joined the state patrol, had been poorly treated.

According to the document, around that time, Nowlin had applied to be transferred from Silverton to Cortez, and when Chavez learned of this, he "engaged in a course of conduct designed to thwart Trooper Nowlin’s transfer to the Cortez area and to destroy his reputation and credibility both with the local law-enforcement community and with his employer, the Colorado State Patrol."

Among the actions Chavez took, according to the claim, were:

-- He told the state patrol it could no longer have an office in the county Justice Building, although the patrol had had an office there for years.

Chavez said it had been the county commission’s decision to ask the patrol to leave, although he had suggested that because his officers were pressed for space.

"The sheriff’s office had expanded," he said. "We had, like, four new deputies. We needed room. I asked the commissioners for more room, and they asked for my suggestion, and I mentioned the state patrol.

"I did everything I could to make it work, but we just needed more room. So the commissioners wrote a letter and gave them an amount of time to leave."

The patrol did leave the Justice Building and still does not have a new office in Cortez.

-- Chavez told Capt. Alan Tebrink and Major Lora Thomas of the state patrol that Nowlin had engaged in "illegal and dishonest conduct during the term of his employment with the Montezuma County Sheriff’s Department and proffered such false accusations as the basis for his refusal to allow Trooper Nowlin into the Montezuma County Justice Building."

-- He "encouraged others in the local law-enforcement community to act ... with him to create an unwelcome environment ... and thus dissuade Trooper Nowlin from his anticipated move to the Cortez Troop." At one point early in 1999, Cortez Police Sgt. Dennis Spruell refused to provide backup to Nowlin although he had been assigned to do so, according to the document.

On Monday, Chavez flatly denied that claim, saying it was "totally untrue."

"Any officer that asks for backup, we’re going to be there in a heartbeat," Chavez said, adding that he had no jurisdiction over actions of the Cortez police anyway.

"Chief Roy Lane runs his own operation over there. I have no influence over what he does."

The claim has been presented to the county’s insurance company, which is standard policy for all notices of claim against the county. The insurance company can decide whether to negotiate a settlement out of court or litigate the matter.