El Paso County undersheriff will not be charged with election bribery
EL PASO COUNTY, Colo. (KRDO)-- Despite admitting to giving 43 people a discount to a gun range if they signed his petition to get on the primary ballot, El Paso County Sheriff nominee, and current undersheriff, Joe Roybal is not being charged with election bribery or other crimes.
In February, Dragonman's Gun Range posted a video on Facebook showing Roybal collecting signatures. In the video, Roybal is seen with the owner of the shop who is offering a $5 discount at the range if people sign Roybal's petition.
"To help him, if you guys come out here today and use my shooting range, and sign Joe's petition, we're gonna knock off $5 dollars off the shooting range price," the owner Mel 'Dragonman' Bernstein says.
After KRDO's story in late June, the 4th Judicial District Attorney's Office said it was reviewing the video in question.
On June 30, the 4th Judicial District Attorney's Office received a formal complaint regarding Roybal's collection of signatures connected to the February incident.
10th Judicial District Attorney Jeff Chostner took on the case, presumably after a conflict of interest with 4th Judicial District Attorney Michael Allen.
On Tuesday morning though Chostner said he would not be pursuing charges against either Roybal or Bernstein. He issued a 'letter of warning' to both.
In the warning letter sent to both Bernstein and Roybal, Chostner wrote he doesn’t think a jury would convict Roybal because the signatures had no bearing on his ability to get on the ballot. Thus, he is not pursuing the case further. Chostner also cited the timeframe for submitting complaints about signatures has long passed.
Still, Chostner wrote in his letter to Roybal, “I find your actions reprehensible and contrary to the proper functioning of a representative democracy.” He continued, “As one seeking a position in law enforcement, your first priority is to uphold the law. I believe you have significantly strayed from that responsibility.”
After the initial KRDO report, Roybal's campaign issued a statement, acknowledging that Roybal had, "researched the rules and understand[s] why the question was raised."
"At the time of the video, I was not aware the discount would be offered for each signature obtained. I was surprised and did not know he was going to make the statement; it was not planned nor coordinated with me," Roybal said in the statement.
Co-owner of Dragonman's Melissa Flanell said that Bernstein and Dragonman's did not know of the rule either.
"It was kind of news to us because we were not aware that we were doing anything wrong," Flanell said. "We definitely don't encourage bribery. We definitely don't want to be affiliated with bribery. This is not something that we did ever in the past, and this is definitely not something we're going to be doing in the future."
For major party candidates, there are two ways to get on the ballot in Colorado: either by getting more than 30 percent of the votes at the state primary assembly or by collecting enough signatures.
According to Colorado election laws, petitioners can not pay for signatures or offer anything of value to get them.
Statute 1-13-401 says, "Any person who offers or, with knowledge of the same, permits any person to offer for his or her benefit any bribe or promise of gain to an elector to induce him or her to sign any petition or other election paper or any person who accepts any bribe or promise of gain of any kind in the nature of a bribe as consideration for signing the same, whether such bribe or promise of gain in the nature of a bribe is offered or accepted before or after signing upon conviction shall be punished as provided in section 1-13-111."
Chostner wrote that there were no prior cases of this nature for C.R.S. 1-13-401 "making this an issue of a first impression"
However, in 2008, a man was jailed for giving out 10-12 pairs of sunglasses for signatures in Denver. Tom Coombes, who is a petition signature gatherer told KRDO he spent a week in jail and maintains that he was offering sunglasses to anybody who wanted them, regardless if they signed the petition he was circulating.
"I don't see how he gets off and there's no precedence when they had me in jail for a week," Coombes said of Roybal. "It's illegal. You can't bribe someone to do this, to do that, when it has to do with voting for them or signing a petition."
Coombes believes what he did in 2008 was not nearly as egregious as Roybal, and still, he paid a far steeper price.
"It's a double standard, absolutely," Coombes said.
KRDO reached out to Roybal for comment on Tuesday and did not hear back.
