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Man pleads guilty to false reporting

Christine Metz

A 20-year-old Milner man pleaded guilty Wednesday to false reporting and being an accessory to a crime.

Christopher Backes appeared in Routt County Court on allegations that he helped a 17-year-old juvenile evade police. County Judge James Garrecht sentenced Backes to fines and 10 days in jail.

On March 5, a 17-year-old boy pleaded guilty to the second-degree burglary of a residence in the 300 block of Pine Street and theft of a laptop computer. The boy, who had previous convictions, was sentenced to two years in a Grand Mesa juvenile detention center.



While being taken by his mother from the Routt County Courthouse to the Routt County Jail, the boy escaped.

The Steamboat Springs Police Department had been looking for the boy from then until March 16, when an off-duty police officer, Sgt. Nick Bosick, spotted the juvenile and followed him to a residence in the 3000 block of Hiawatha Court. On-duty police officers came to the residence and knocked on the door, asking for the juvenile.



Police reported Backes and Max Nierenberg opened the door and said the juvenile was not there and that they had not seen him.

The juvenile went out the back door and was caught by police officers and taken into custody.

During his pleading, Backes said he did not know the juvenile was downstairs.

“I just want to get this done with,” Backes said to why he pleaded guilty.

Nierenberg was charged with contributing to the delinquency of a minor and accessory to a crime.

Also in County Court on Wednesday, an attorney for Wallace Wright, a Rock Springs, Wyo., man charged with second-degree motor vehicle theft said her client had agreed to a plea offer with the District’s Attorney’s Office and asked for his case to be bound over to District Court.

In court a week ago, Wright said he would be willing to accept the offer of pleading guilty of theft by receiving and have a felony dropped if he could serve his sentence concurrently with a two-year sentence he is serving in Wyoming.

On Feb. 27, the Colorado State Patrol pulled Wright over for speeding and discovered he was driving a 2002 Chevrolet pickup that was reported stolen that day in Rock Springs.

Also in court Wednesday, Garrecht postponed a status hearing for a 46-year-old man charged with sexually assaulting a child as a person “in a position of trust.” The next status hearing is scheduled for Wednesday.

The police department issued a warrant for the man’s arrest in November, after a girl reported the case to an authority in a Steamboat school.

— To reach Christine Metz call 871-4229

or e-mail cmetz@steamboatpilot.com


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