Aspen Police
Aspen police found four guns, including an AR-15 rifle, in the home of a man arrested for allegedly robbing the Theatre Aspen concession stand at knifepoint last week, according to court records.
Yuri Ognacevic, 38, is a convicted felon — he pleaded guilty to felony robbery for taking part in the 1999 armed robbery of Clark’s Market — and cannot possess weapons. A search warrant return filed Tuesday in Pitkin County District Court indicates he will likely face an addition felony charge for the weapons possession.
Ognacevic was charged Friday with felony armed robbery for pulling a knife on three young people serving concessions at Theatre Aspen on July 9. Those witnesses — one identified the weapon as a screwdriver — told police a man wearing a hat, glasses and a bandana over his face demanded money from the cash register and fled.
A Theatre Aspen official said the man made off with $250.
Ognacevic also was charged with two counts of felony theft for allegedly snatching two purses July 3 and July 9 that were hanging from the back of chairs at outdoor restaurant seating areas in downtown Aspen. In addition he faces one count of misdemeanor theft.
Police searched Ognacevic’s condominium on Upper Woodbridge Road in Snowmass Village on Friday and found the guns in his bedroom closet, according to the search warrant return. The weapons included a Spikes Tactical AR-15 rifle, a Savage .22 caliber rifle, a .30-caliber, camouflage-colored, bolt-action hunting rifle and a Kel-Tec PF-9 9mm handgun, the document states.
Officers also found in his home more than 100 rounds of ammunition that included bullets for all four guns, as well as several air pellet guns, though they did not seize them because Ognacevic is allowed to possess them, Aspen Police Sgt. Rick Magnuson said Tuesday.
Magnuson declined to say whether officers have found the knife or screwdriver allegedly used in the Theatre Aspen robbery, though those items were not listed in the search warrant return. Officers also found a Fitbit device from Ognacevic’s home the alleged purse snatcher appeared to be wearing in pictures taken at Rubey Park just before the second purse snatching, according to a second search warrant return.
Ognacevic is one of a dozen Aspen natives arrested as teenagers for their roles in a series of sometimes violent robberies and burglaries in the Aspen area in 1999. Many were members of well-known, longtime Aspen families.
Ognacevic, who graduated from Aspen High School, was 18 and in his first year at the University of Colorado when he pleaded guilty to felony robbery for his role in the Clark’s Market robbery. He told police at the time that he supplied an unloaded .22 caliber rifle used in that robbery, and said he provided information to the robbers about who was still in the store and if the safe was open at the time of the robbery, then drove the getaway car, according to a 2000 Aspen Times story.
He served less than a year at a minimum security prison in Canon City, then finished his sentence in a halfway house, according to a 2003 Aspen Times story.
Ognacevic was booked into the Pitkin County Jail on Friday for the purse snatchings and the Theatre Aspen robbery, though his father later posted his $15,000 cash-only bond and he was released. He is due back in court Aug. 5.