{"id":1312575,"date":"2019-07-18T16:36:54","date_gmt":"2019-07-18T22:36:54","guid":{"rendered":"https:\/\/www.postindependent.com\/?p=984250"},"modified":"2019-07-18T16:36:54","modified_gmt":"2019-07-18T22:36:54","slug":"leahy-gornick-admit-to-bid-rigging-accept-plea-deals","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/alwaysmountaintime.com\/kske\/local-news\/leahy-gornick-admit-to-bid-rigging-accept-plea-deals\/","title":{"rendered":"Leahy, Gornick admit to bid rigging, accept plea deals"},"content":{"rendered":"
\n
Todd Leahy<\/strong>
Post Independent file<\/em><\/figcaption><\/div>\n<\/figure>\n

Former Glenwood Springs City Councilor Todd Leahy and his real estate colleague both admitted rigging trustee foreclosure auctions on a few occasions, but took plea deals for lesser charges in a court hearing Thursday.<\/p>\n

Leahy, 54, and James Gornick, 49, were each charged with bid rigging, a class 5 felony, through a grand jury indictment<\/a> filed May 23.<\/p>\n

Leahy, who finished his final term on City Council in April, and James Gornick, both pleaded guilty to second-degree perjury, a misdemeanor, and were sentenced in the same hearing to three years probation and 100 hours of community service.<\/p>\n

They also paid restitution, in the form of payment to a Roaring Fork Valley charity, for what prosecutors called their \u201cill-gotten gains.\u201d<\/p>\n

As a stipulation of their plea deal, Leahy paid $16,000 and Gornick paid $7,278. Judge Denise Lynch did not impose any additional fines.<\/p>\n

As part of the lesser perjury charge, Leahy and Gornick\u2019s plea stipulated that they had intended to mislead in an official proceeding.<\/p>\n

As a result of their pleas, both Leahy and Gornick are barred from serving in an elected office by the state constitution.<\/p>\n

Robert Shapiro of the Colorado Attorney General\u2019s Office argued that Leahy and Gornick deserved punitive sentences with jail time for violating the public trust.<\/p>\n

The indictment details several cases of bid rigging that occurred in 2013 and 2017, but Shapiro told the court that he doesn\u2019t believe that those were the only questionable auctions Gornick and Leahy were involved with.<\/p>\n

\u201cThis was not a one-time incident,\u201d Shapiro said.<\/p>\n

Garfield County Treasurer Karla Longhurst (formerly Bagley), who runs the public trustee auctions for the county, spoke during the sentencing portion of the court hearing.<\/p>\n

Leahy and Gornick \u201cundermined the integrity of the foreclosure sale and system,\u201d Longhurst said.<\/p>\n

\u201cIt\u2019s my opinion that the acts of the defendants were outrageous, and occurred over a period of four years or more,\u201d she said.<\/p>\n

Expressions of remorse<\/h4>\n

Both Leahy and Gornick apologized for their actions and accepted responsibility for rigging the auctions.<\/p>\n

After reflecting over past several months, Gornick said he has realized, \u201cI\u2019m the one that has caused undue stress to my family, business partners, and my real estate clients.\u201d<\/p>\n

\u201cI can\u2019t tell you how humiliating that is to me,\u201d Leahy said. He then apologized to his family, friends and the greater community.<\/p>\n

\u201cNobody deserved this humiliation except myself,\u201d he said.<\/p>\n

The maximum sentence for bid rigging is 18 months in jail and a $5,000 fine, but lawyers for both Gornick and Leahy pushed for sentences without jail time.<\/p>\n

\u201cWe weren\u2019t able to find, in the last 15 years, any prosecutions for bid rigging,\u201d attorney Kevin McGreevy said.<\/p>\n

The lawyers also stressed that neither man had a criminal record, and both had strong ties in the community.<\/p>\n

Several community members, including an unnamed former mayor of Glenwood Springs, wrote letters attesting to Leahy and Gornick\u2019s ties to the community.<\/p>\n

 \u201cWe understand and we agree, that interfering with the trustee (auction) process is problematic, and illegal,\u201d said attorney Rick Kornfeld, representing Leahy.<\/p>\n

Kornfeld asked that Judge Lynch consider the greater context of Leahy\u2019s work for the community.<\/p>\n

\u201cPublic service courses through his veins,\u201d said Kornfeld of Leahy.<\/p>\n

Both men also had been punished, though not officially, due to their loss of reputation, the defense lawyers said.<\/p>\n

Judge Lynch declined to impose punitive jail time or additional fines, saying that serving their community was appropriate.<\/p>\n

\u201cYou\u2019re going to suffer some collateral consequences, I\u2019m sure, and you already have,\u201d Lynch said.<\/p>\n

Both Leahy and Gornick are at risk of losing their state licenses to practice real estate.<\/p>\n

\u201cThis has been a very public case, so I\u2019m sure your reputation in the community has been damaged,\u201d Lynch said.<\/p>\n

She added that no one likes to be on the front page of the paper.<\/p>\n

\u201cI don\u2019t even like it when they cover my courtroom,\u201d Lynch said.<\/p>\n

tphippen@postindependent.com<\/a><\/em><\/p>\n

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

Todd LeahyPost Independent file Former Glenwood Springs City Councilor Todd Leahy and his real estate colleague both admitted rigging trustee foreclosure auctions on a few occasions, but took plea deals for lesser charges in a court hearing Thursday. Leahy, 54, and James Gornick, 49, were each charged with bid rigging, a class 5 felony, through […]<\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":2,"featured_media":0,"comment_status":"closed","ping_status":"closed","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"_acf_changed":false,"footnotes":""},"categories":[160],"tags":[],"class_list":{"0":"post-1312575","1":"post","2":"type-post","3":"status-publish","4":"format-standard","6":"category-local-news"},"acf":[],"publishpress_future_action":{"enabled":false,"date":"2026-06-20 23:47:17","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":"KSKE Ski Country","distributor_original_site_url":"https:\/\/alwaysmountaintime.com\/kske","push-errors":false,"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/alwaysmountaintime.com\/kske\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/1312575","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/alwaysmountaintime.com\/kske\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/alwaysmountaintime.com\/kske\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/alwaysmountaintime.com\/kske\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/2"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/alwaysmountaintime.com\/kske\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=1312575"}],"version-history":[{"count":0,"href":"https:\/\/alwaysmountaintime.com\/kske\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/1312575\/revisions"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/alwaysmountaintime.com\/kske\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=1312575"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/alwaysmountaintime.com\/kske\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=1312575"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/alwaysmountaintime.com\/kske\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=1312575"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}