BOULDER, Colo. (BRAIN) — A defendant in the investigation into a series of shop burglaries accepted a plea agreement, according to the Colorado Attorney General's Office.
The Boulder County deputy district attorney handled Tuesday's hearing in which Jason Quijada, 23, agreed to a three-year deferred sentence on the felony motor vehicle theft count and three years' probation for misdemeanor criminal mischief count. The Colorado Attorney General's Office partnered with the Boulder District Attorney on the case.
Considering Quijad's absence of adult criminal history, prosecutors said the sentence was in line with other lower level organization members, the attorney general's office said.
Prosecutors said the ring would steal vans and then drive them through the front windows of bike shops, load the vans with stolen bikes and then transfer the bikes to accomplices who would sell them and abandon the stolen vans.
The crime spree affected bike shops on Colorado's Front Range, including the Denver and Boulder areas. All told, the eight individuals indicted were charged with 227 counts. The value of the stolen vehicles, stolen property, and property damage carried out from December 2019 until June 2020 was approximately $1.5 million.
The state attorney general indicted eight people last November resulting from an investigation On Sept. 1, Austin Butler, 23, was sentenced after pleading guilty to one count of violation of the Colorado Organized Crime Control Act, one count of second-degree burglary, and one count of aggravated motor vehicle theft. In the original indictment Butler was charged with 25 counts.
