{"id":1317110,"date":"2019-12-04T17:47:12","date_gmt":"2019-12-05T00:47:12","guid":{"rendered":"https:\/\/www.postindependent.com\/?p=991526"},"modified":"2019-12-04T17:47:12","modified_gmt":"2019-12-05T00:47:12","slug":"no-jail-time-for-man-who-paid-for-sex-with-17-year-old-in-glenwood-springs","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/alwaysmountaintime.com\/kske\/local-news\/no-jail-time-for-man-who-paid-for-sex-with-17-year-old-in-glenwood-springs\/","title":{"rendered":"No jail time for man who paid for sex with 17-year-old in Glenwood Springs"},"content":{"rendered":"
\n
Ronald Braden<\/strong>
<\/em><\/figcaption><\/div>\n<\/figure>\n

Ron Braden will avoid prison time after pleading guilty Wednesday for having sex with a 17-year-old prostitute in Glenwood Springs.<\/p>\n

The plea deal also means the victim in the case will not have to relive the trauma of being trafficked for sex in a criminal trial, according to a letter written by the victim\u2019s mother.<\/p>\n

Braden pleaded guilty to contributing to the delinquency of a minor, which in this case involved an underage person in possession of marijuana, which carried a potential 2-6 year prison sentence, and up to 12 years in aggravated circumstances.<\/p>\n

Braden also pleaded guilty to engaging with a prostitute, a class 1 misdemeanor, which could have resulted in an 18-month jail sentence.<\/p>\n

Neither plea requires Braden to register as a sex offender.<\/p>\n

Judge Denise Lynch sentenced Braden to a total of 5 years supervised probation and 100 hours of community service.<\/p>\n

Braden admitted he had sex with the minor victim at a Glenwood Springs hotel in July 2017.<\/p>\n

The teenager and her friend, also a minor, were trafficked by Dasjuan Goode, who accepted a plea deal<\/a> in August and was sentenced to 10 years in prison<\/a> in October.<\/p>\n

Damara Hester, who pleaded guilty<\/a> to contributing to the delinquency of a minor in October for her role in the prostitution ring, is scheduled for sentencing in January.<\/p>\n

Braden apologized for his behavior in a statement to the judge.<\/p>\n

\u201cTo my family, my friends, my team, my colleagues at work, and most certainly the victim, I am sorry. I screwed up, plain and simple,\u201d Braden said.<\/p>\n

Braden insisted that if he had known the girl was underage, he would not have had sex with her.<\/p>\n

\u201cIf I would have known this girl was 17 years old, we wouldn\u2019t be here. I absolutely would have helped get her out of that situation,\u201d Braden said.<\/p>\n

Prosecutor Janet Drake of the Colorado Attorney General\u2019s office said Braden was in the habit of blaming the victim.<\/p>\n

\u201cHe\u2019s done that from the beginning, making arguments that he didn\u2019t know her age,\u201d Drake told the judge.<\/p>\n

The facts of the case indicate that prostitution contributes to trafficking of minors, and that those seeking to pay for sex should be punished, according to Drake. <\/p>\n

\u201cWithout sex buyers, we wouldn\u2019t have a market\u201d for exploitation, Drake said. Prosecutors had asked for jail time as punishment.<\/p>\n

Braden\u2019s attorney, Alaurice Tafoya-Modi, said her client had been punished in losing his job, and from the publicity that the case has received.<\/p>\n

\u201cThis last year has not been easy for him,\u201d Tafoya-Modi said. Braden\u2019s name \u201chas been plastered in the newspaper\u201d and \u201che lost a job that was part of his identity.\u201d<\/p>\n

\u201cYou have been punished. Your reputation is gone. You\u2019ve lost your house, you lost a good job,\u201d Lynch said.<\/p>\n

\u201cThere\u2019s no doubt that the victim in this case was vulnerable,\u201d Tafoya-Modi said, but added: \u201cThere was someone else that was vulnerable in this case, and that was Mr. Braden.\u201d<\/p>\n

Even though Braden had a daughter approximately the same age as the victim, it is not reasonable to expect him to know that the victim was a minor in part because of her race, his attorney argued.<\/p>\n

\u201cThe victim is African American, and there are cross-racial identification issues,\u201d Tafoya-Modi said.<\/p>\n

Tafoya-Modi said that Braden was seeking comfort after a breakup, and spent time with Hester and later the victim because he thought they were adults.<\/p>\n

\u201cThere are people out here looking to have sex with a minor\u2026 but that is not the facts here,\u201d Tafoya-Modi said.<\/p>\n

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

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

Ronald Braden Ron Braden will avoid prison time after pleading guilty Wednesday for having sex with a 17-year-old prostitute in Glenwood Springs. The plea deal also means the victim in the case will not have to relive the trauma of being trafficked for sex in a criminal trial, according to a letter written by the […]<\/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":["post-1317110","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","category-local-news"],"acf":[],"publishpress_future_action":{"enabled":false,"date":"2026-09-06 10:37:46","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\/1317110","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=1317110"}],"version-history":[{"count":0,"href":"https:\/\/alwaysmountaintime.com\/kske\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/1317110\/revisions"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/alwaysmountaintime.com\/kske\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=1317110"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/alwaysmountaintime.com\/kske\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=1317110"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/alwaysmountaintime.com\/kske\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=1317110"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}