{"id":24177,"date":"2019-05-23T09:46:21","date_gmt":"2019-05-23T15:46:21","guid":{"rendered":"https:\/\/www.summitdaily.com\/?p=366291"},"modified":"2019-05-23T09:46:21","modified_gmt":"2019-05-23T15:46:21","slug":"lake-christine-fire-defendants-plead-guilty-to-misdemeanor-face-45-days-in-jail-and-100k-restitution","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/alwaysmountaintime.com\/kift\/local-news\/lake-christine-fire-defendants-plead-guilty-to-misdemeanor-face-45-days-in-jail-and-100k-restitution\/","title":{"rendered":"Lake Christine Fire defendants plead guilty to misdemeanor, face 45 days in jail and $100k restitution"},"content":{"rendered":"
Lake Christine Fire defendant Richard Miller, right, and his attorney Josh Maximon talk Wednesday about the plea deal entered in Eagle County District Court in Eagle. By pleading guilty to one misdemeanor, he likely faces a sentence that will include 45 days in jail, 1,500 hours of community service, $100,000 in restitution and five years of probation.<\/strong>
Chris Dillmann | cdillmann@vaildaily.com<\/em><\/figcaption><\/figure>\n

The defendants in the Lake Christine Fire case pleaded guilty to a misdemeanor charge Wednesday and agreed to a possible sentence that will include 45 days in jail, 1,500 hours of community service, $100,000 each in restitution and five years of probation.<\/p>\n

Richard Miller, 24, and Allison Marcus, 23, pleaded guilty to setting fire to woods or prairie. In return, the Fifth Judicial District Attorney\u2019s office dismissed three counts of felony arson and amended a felony count of setting fire to woods or prairie to a misdemeanor.<\/p>\n

Assistant District Attorney Heidi McCollum said she talked to the victims of the fire Tuesday night. Three families in the El Jebel area lost their homes<\/a> in the fire, which burned more than 12,500 acres.<\/p>\n

\u201cAll of the terms of these plea agreements touch on every one of the concerns of these victims,\u201d McCollum said.<\/p>\n

Eagle County District Judge Paul Dunkelman accepted the guilty pleas and conditionally accepted the proposed sentences. He said he wants to give the victims in the case<\/a> a chance to comment at the sentencing hearing on July 1.<\/p>\n

Stan Garnett, attorney for Marcus, said the plea dispositions were \u201cfair.\u201d<\/p>\n

\u201cAs a matter of fact, it reflects what Allison Marcus said right from the beginning, that this was an accident and she will take responsibility,\u201d he said.<\/p>\n

Miller and Marcus were firing weapons at the Basalt shooting range<\/a> the afternoon of July 3. Marcus was shooting a rifle they borrowed from Miller\u2019s father while Miller was firing a shotgun at the adjacent range. The rifle ammunition they picked up had incendiary tracer rounds.<\/p>\n

In a statement written by Marcus and read in court Wednesday by Garnett, Marcus acknowledged she was negligent for not checking what type of ammunition she was firing. She said she believes the use of a tracer round may have started the fire.<\/p>\n

The wildland fire broke out shortly after 6 p.m. It eventually charred 12,588 acres<\/a> of private, state and federal lands.<\/p>\n

\u201cI think this plea agreement strikes a balance between accountability and what really happened,\u201d Garnett said.<\/p>\n

In a statement written by Miller and read by his attorney, Josh Maximon, Miller acknowledged that the tracer round started the fire. He said he should have checked the ammunition before Marcus fired. By failing to act, he said, he was responsible for the fire.<\/p>\n

\u201cHe is devastated with his role in causing this terrible fire,\u201d Maximon said. \u201cHe wanted to make amends for it and take personal responsibility.\u201d<\/p>\n

Garnett noted that Marcus called 911 and stayed on the line with a dispatcher until fire trucks arrived. When talking to investigators that night, she expressed remorse for starting the fire.<\/p>\n

\u201cShe more than anybody in Eagle County felt horrible about what happened,\u201d Garnett said.<\/p>\n

He noted that Marcus intends to remain in the Roaring Fork Valley even though the public is \u201cfurious\u201d with her and Miller to show \u201cshe cared\u201d and \u201cwanted to make it right.\u201d<\/p>\n

She is pursing a career as a chef, Garnett said.<\/p>\n

Miller graduated from the University of Maryland with a degree in electrical engineering.<\/p>\n

Miller and Marcus were well-dressed, as they have been for numerous hearings in the case. They answered the judge\u2019s questions about their understanding of the plea agreement and willingness to plead guilty, but otherwise said little. Garnett said Marcus might read a statement at the sentencing hearing.<\/p>\n

McCollum said during the hearing that there were problems with the case that were exposed during pre-trial proceedings and in the process of getting information to the defendants\u2019 attorneys during discovery. She said U.S. Forest Service Law Enforcement Officer Chris Mandrick undertook a cause and origin report after telling his supervisor he had been asked by other investigating agencies to do the work.<\/p>\n

\u201cThat was not true,\u201d McCollum said.<\/p>\n

The Eagle County Sheriff\u2019s Office asked the Colorado Wildland Fire Management office to undertake the study, she said.<\/p>\n

The official report and Mandrick\u2019s report came to different conclusions on the origin, which was one of the problems of the case, McCollum said.<\/p>\n

The Eagle County Sheriff\u2019s Office had problems with Mandrick\u2019s conduct early in the investigation and had expressed those concerns in emails, McCollum said. Those emails were apparently destroyed, putting the DA\u2019s office in a tough position. The DA has an obligation to supply the defense with all pertinent information.<\/p>\n

\u201cThey could certainly bring up a matter of destruction of evidence,\u201d McCollum said.<\/p>\n

Another issue was confusion over rules and regulations of a Stage II fire ban and coordination of the rules by various state and federal agencies. McCollum said there has been confusion about the terms of the fire restrictions.<\/p>\n

As a whole, the DA\u2019s case was \u201cultimately compromised\u201d by those issues and others, McCollum said. \u201cThose all sort of go to the strength of the People\u2019s case.\u201d<\/p>\n

After the hearing, McCollum said the plea disposition was fair to the victims, the community as a whole and the defendants. When asked by a reporter what she would say to anyone who feels Miller and Marcus are getting off \u201clight,\u201d McCollum responded, \u201cI would say this is a permanent criminal conviction that will always be on their records, they are both somewhat fresh out of college and now basically have a second college debt to pay off (under) the supervision of the court and, thirdly, the community service hours were a really big part of this disposition.\u201d<\/p>\n

If they had been convicted of the felony arson charges, they would have been responsible for restitution for the firefighting costs, in excess of $20 million, \u201cwhich for all practical purposes would never be paid,\u201d she said.<\/p>\n

A \u201cmore just\u201d sentence is the large amount of community service hours and the $100,000 restitution, McCollum said. She added she rarely has seen cases with 1,500 hours of community service. The type of community service will be worked out with the probation office.<\/p>\n

McCollum noted neither Miller nor Marcus have a prior criminal record. That was another reason in favor of the plea deal, she said.<\/p>\n

\u201cWe don\u2019t want to prosecute cases, we don\u2019t want to punish people, we want to do the right thing,\u201d McCollum said.<\/p>\n

After the hearing, Garnett made it clear he felt the charges Marcus initially faced were excessive.<\/p>\n

\u201cAllison Marcus is a terrific person,\u201d he said. \u201cFor her to have to go through the past 10\u00bd months with four felony charges against her and watching the federal government, the state government, the county government bumble around to try to create a case against her was very frustrating for me as a lawyer.<\/p>\n

\u201cWhat she pled to today is fair,\u201d Garnett continued. \u201cThat\u2019s what happened. It\u2019s what she said happened from the beginning, it\u2019s what she told the sheriff\u2019s deputy there. What was disappointing to me was to watch people try to make her a scapegoat and try to turn it into more than it was, in a reaction to the community, and of course the community was frustrated and outraged, I totally understand that. She was always willing to take responsibility for what happened like she did.\u201d<\/p>\n

scondon@aspentimes.com<\/a><\/p>\n

via:: Summit Daily<\/a><\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"

Lake Christine Fire defendant Richard Miller, right, and his attorney Josh Maximon talk Wednesday about the plea deal entered in Eagle County District Court in Eagle. By pleading guilty to one misdemeanor, he likely faces a sentence that will include 45 days in jail, 1,500 hours of community service, $100,000 in restitution and five years […]<\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":2,"featured_media":0,"comment_status":"open","ping_status":"closed","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"_acf_changed":false,"footnotes":""},"categories":[97],"tags":[],"class_list":{"0":"post-24177","1":"post","2":"type-post","3":"status-publish","4":"format-standard","6":"category-local-news"},"acf":[],"publishpress_future_action":{"enabled":false,"date":"2026-06-11 04:16:53","action":"change-status","newStatus":"draft","terms":[],"taxonomy":"category","extraData":[]},"publishpress_future_workflow_manual_trigger":{"enabledWorkflows":[]},"distributor_meta":false,"distributor_terms":false,"distributor_media":false,"distributor_original_site_name":"KIFT - The LIFT FM","distributor_original_site_url":"https:\/\/alwaysmountaintime.com\/kift","push-errors":false,"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/alwaysmountaintime.com\/kift\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/24177","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/alwaysmountaintime.com\/kift\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/alwaysmountaintime.com\/kift\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/alwaysmountaintime.com\/kift\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/2"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/alwaysmountaintime.com\/kift\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=24177"}],"version-history":[{"count":0,"href":"https:\/\/alwaysmountaintime.com\/kift\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/24177\/revisions"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/alwaysmountaintime.com\/kift\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=24177"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/alwaysmountaintime.com\/kift\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=24177"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/alwaysmountaintime.com\/kift\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=24177"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}