By David Grant Long

Charges of underage drinking against four teenagers, including two sons of Montezuma County Sheriff Joey Chavez, were recently refiled in Dolores County Court by the Colorado State Patrol after being dismissed by District Attorney Mike Green last month. Whether they will actually be prosecuted this time around remains unclear, however.

Green told CSP supervisor Sgt. Jerry Wiseman at one point that he would simply dismiss the charges again if they were refiled, according to court documents, but indicated last week he would "prosecute these cases pursuant to Colorado law" after Judge Bob Johnson ruled there was "probable cause for the prosecution to be activated."

Early on the morning of Oct. 3, CSP Trooper David Van Bibber, who was responding to a report of a roll-over accident on a Forest Service road 30 miles north of Dolores, contacted the four male suspects, three of whom were 17 years of age and one 16, according to the officer’s account.

Van Bibber cited each of the boys for consumption of alcohol by a minor after they admitted they’d been drinking beer and a witness also confirmed she’d seen them imbibing, he recounted in documents asking Judge Johnson to reinstate the charges. The suspects also smelled as though they’d been drinking beer, he added.

Upon learning the citations had been dismissed when the defendants made their first court appearance on Nov. 8, Van Bibber met with the DA and asked for an explanation, the trooper said in an affidavit filed Nov. 29. But Green gave the patrol different reasons for dismissing the original charges, according to the affidavit, initially assuring Van Bibber the action hadn’t been taken because of any flaw in his investigation or as favored treatment to the suspects.

"Mr. Green said that he ‘screwed up if there was a screw-up,’ that ‘it just didn’t work’ " Van Bibber recounted. "I told Mr. Green that I did not understand why my cases kept getting dismissed based on mistakes generated in the DA’s office, and that I thought it sent the wrong message to violators.

"Mr. Green told me that the dismissal had nothing to do with me or my case or the fact that two of the defendants were the sheriff’s children. He also said that no one had tried to get him to dismiss the charges."

But Green later told Wiseman that Van Bibber’s interviews of the teens "could be interpreted as interrogations and the statements would be inadmissible" in court, the affidavit said. Green also told Wiseman he would again dismiss the charges if they were refiled, it added, but Wiseman told the trooper to refile them anyway.

According to the affidavit, Green told Van Bibber that the terms of plea agreements he’d worked out with the defendants were unacceptable to Johnson, who wanted them to include fines and other conditions. The plea agreements had been verbal only, according to the court clerk, and nothing signed by the defendants had been submitted to the court.

"Mr. Green explained that ... rather than go to trial, which is where he thought it was headed, he instead said, ‘We’re done,’" the affidavit said.

The standard disposition for first-time underage drinkers in Montezuma County is either a 12-month deferment or probation, depending on the circumstances, and includes a payment of $78 in court costs and fees and performing 24 hours Useful Public Service. A deferred case is dismissed at the end of that period if the conditions of the agreement have been met; if a defendant receives probation, however, the disposition is reported to the Department of Motor Vehicles, which can result in the suspension of a driver’s license.

Green told Van Bibber that three of the defendants had agreed to plead guilty in return for deferments and one had agreed to plead guilty to an unspecified traffic offense, but they then balked when the judge demanded the additional conditions.

The defendants are set for arraignment on the new charges Jan. 17, but in his response to Van Bibber’s motion, Green indicated there may be some new problems.

"This office intends to prosecute these cases pursuant to Colorado state law," he informed Johnson Nov. 29, "and therefore believes that the affidavit filed by the State Patrol for prosecution does not meet the requirements set forth in the (relevant) statute."

Only one of the re-issued summons was signed by a defendant, according to court records, and one of the other three defendants threatened to file a trespass complaint against a trooper who attempted to get him to sign his summons.