By Cory Gaines | Commentary, Colorado Accountability Project
Do Colorado courts ignore fugitive warrants for sex offenders just like they do ICE detainers?
I wrote a bit back about Colorado’s sanctuary policy and ICE detainers. To see that earlier op ed, click the first link below.
The second link below, a Cowboy State Daily (WY) article about a sex offender being released on a PR bond, struck me as a good follow up to the earlier one about ICE. Not so much because the sex offender was here illegally, but because it touches on some of the same things: being released on bond, confusion about detaining someone, and/or Colorado’s seeming unwillingness to honor some warrants/hold requests.
Let’s talk the story first. In my earlier op ed, I outlined the process that happens if you get booked into jail. Quoting:
“When you are arrested on a jailable offense, you are taken to the officer in charge of booking at the jail. Depending on where you are and their normal practice, your ID is checked against a list of local jurisdictions to see if you’re wanted for any other crimes. When you get a bail hearing, the judge sets how much you’ll have to pay for a bond, and, if you can come up with either the full amount or a percentage for a bondsman, the jail releases you on bail.”
In the case involving the accused Wyoming sex offender, he had a fugitive warrant out for his arrest out of Converse County, WY. The day after the fugitive was arrested in Larimer County, he appeared in court to answer for the fugitive warrant. The magistrate overseeing the hearing released the man on a PR bond (see the graphic heading this post–a PR bond is one where you don’t have to put up any surety that you’ll meet the terms, you just agree to do it).
At this point the story gets kind of hazy, and it becomes difficult to pin down exactly what happened. In an effort to clear this up, I reached out to the Larimer County Sheriff’s PIO to see if they wanted to give a statement to help clarify (the magistrate would not ever do that, so I didn’t bother asking). As of this writing, I’ve not heard, but I will update when and if I do.
As with the case involving Boulder and ICE in my op ed, there seems to be some gaps here in the information in the Cowboy State Daily article. Some non-contiguous quotes illustrate.
“[Converse County Undersheriff Chris] Walsh said whatever snafu unfolded to allow a wanted man to be released didn’t happen on Converse County’s end of the transaction. He was just as surprised as everyone to learn Smallbone [the fugitive] was released. ‘We’d been working with investigators there in Larimer County; we provided them with all of our warrant information, all our affidavits,’ Walsh told Cowboy State Daily on Friday. ‘Whatever happened, he ended up getting released,’ he said, adding that the sheriff’s office in Colorado gave his agency ‘great cooperation’ and any mix-up likely happened at the court level. ‘I feel like we did everything on our end we could do’ to get Smallbone back to Wyoming, he said. ‘But we can’t file anything in a Colorado court.’”
“A staffer at the Larimer County Court confirmed Friday afternoon that the magistrate didn’t have the Wyoming paperwork by the time Smallbone’s hearing came up. The Converse County Attorney’s Office responded that it has a policy of not commenting on active cases, stating that his arraignment is set for Tuesday and that ‘our office expects him to appear for that court date.’”
And
“’The judge did say that she agrees with the defense that it [the extradition paperwork] was not processed correctly through their court,’ [fellow WY resident who watched the Colorado hearing Kelsey] Crandall said. She also said Smallbone assured the Colorado magistrate that if given a PR bond, he’d return to Wyoming for his Tuesday hearing, along with another one in Colorado set for him Thursday, per an order by the magistrate.”**
Regardless of the paperwork troubles between Larimer and Converse Counties, regardless of the uncertainty, there is one thing here that you can hang your hat on.
There are legal technicalities that might have required the judge to offer him bail, but there is no reason I’m aware of that it had to be a PR bond. There was no reason to offer someone who’s already got a warrant for skipping bond the chance to walk out of jail by simply saying, “this time I mean it, I will show for my hearings.”
Putting as high a cash bond price on this man as the law allows would not guarantee he’ll be there when the extradition paperwork problem gets ironed out, but damned if it wouldn’t offer a higher probability than letting him walk.
Besides the follow up lesson in bonding out, I hope you take something else away from this. When we have discussions in the public square about safety and crime, remember that it isn’t always the laws on the books. Sometimes part of the problem is judges offering PR bonds to accused felons.
**Besides the fact that Smallbone was hauled in on a fugitive warrant, there is more telling bits about whether or not Smallbone will happily attend either hearing. Quoting: “The apparent error with the Colorado court isn’t the first time Walsh has been surprised by Smallbone and the case against him. He was able to abscond to another state because he posted a $250,000 cash bond in his Converse County case — and did so when someone on his behalf walked into the Converse County Detention Center on June 24 with a quarter of a million dollars in cash.”
https://completecolorado.com/2026/07/19/boulder-dust-up-ice-sanctuary-spin-cycle/
READ THE FULL COMMENTARY AT COLORADO ACCOUNTABILITY PROJECT
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