A Woody Creek woman who has been repeatedly arrested for theft and drunken driving over the past decade was charged last week with threatening and intimidating a male friend and his children, according to court documents.
Jillian White, 63, faces felony charges of intimidating a witness and stalking for allegedly trying to repeatedly get the male friend to lie to police and say he was at the wheel of her car when she crashed it while drunk on Highway 82 in January.
“Warning,” White allegedly emailed the man’s daughter April 9 in all capital letters, according to the documents. “Your father is going down. Tell him that tomorrow is toooo (sic) late.”
The next day White allegedly sent an email to the man with his son’s current address and the words, “Gonna have my peeps there get in touch with the young stud,” according to an arrest warrant affidavit filed April 25 in Eagle County District Court.
The man told police the email with his son’s address was especially concerning because he never gave her his address and “it shocked the hell” out of him that she had it, the affidavit states.
Finally, White bragged in emails about knowing several prominent television journalists, including one who worked at the news magazine, “48 Hours.” She told the man in an April 5 email that the last time she was in New York with her “48 Hours” friend, the woman jokingly said, “if I killed you she would get the story for ‘48 Hours,’” the documents state.
“You f/ed with the wrong person,” White allegedly wrote in the April 5 email to the man.
“If I want to get to you, I know exactly how,” White allegedly wrote in another email to the man. “Trust me.”
In December — after the man had cut off contact with White — her cellphone and land line calls began inexplicably being forwarded to the man’s phone, the affidavit states. At one point, he received a voice message from a man in Manhattan named “Abraham, who said, ‘You know I’ve got a lot of stuff on (name redacted) is there anything else you want on him,’” according to the document.
The man told an investigator with the 5th Judicial District that White has “wealth untold,” is connected to “the Jewish underground and all the heavy hitters on the East Coast and New York City” and can afford $100,000 “to go off somebody,” according to the affidavit.
“I asked (the man) if he would consider himself and his family members in immediate threat,” the investigator wrote in the affidavit. “Again without hesitation, he stated, ‘Yes.’”
The alleged threats and harassment are rooted in a three-car accident that occurred a little after 6 p.m. Jan. 22 at the intersection of El Jebel Road and Highway 82.
A Colorado State Patrol trooper arrived at the scene and saw two heavily damaged vehicles blocking the eastbound Highway 82 lanes, and White sitting in the driver’s seat of a 2014 Audi with a deployed airbag parked on the right side of the road, according to the affidavit.
White told the trooper her male friend was the driver and that she’d somehow dropped him off and driven away, presumably after the accident. She allegedly smelled of alcohol, had slurred speech and walked unsteadily, the affidavit states.
“The CSP trooper told Jillian White that he knew she was the driver and she should tell him the truth,” according to the document. “Jillian White then told the CSP trooper that she dropped her boyfriend off and then drove away.”
White refused roadside sobriety tests, a portable breath test and chemical tests of her blood and breath. She was eventually charged with DUI, careless driving, no proof of insurance and tampering.
Meanwhile, the male friend showed up at the accident scene in a taxi and told the trooper White drank two “flights” of whiskey before they argued and then went into a rage while they later sat in the car. He said he then got out of her car, went for a walk and returned 20 minutes later to find White gone, according to the affidavit.
The trooper told him he knew he wasn’t the driver because he was too tall to fit in the front seat in its current position, the man later told the DA investigator. He also told the trooper he was waiting for the taxi in Carbondale at the time of the accident, which was later verified with the taxi company, the affidavit states.
The affidavit contains pages and pages of rambling, nonsensical emails and text messages White allegedly sent the man threatening him and urging him to change his story and claim he was the driver. White appears to blame the man for her driving because he should have known that alcohol triggers symptoms related to traumatic brain injuries she’s suffered, according to the affidavit.
The man is a witness in White’s January DUI case in Eagle County.
White has been charged with DUI four times in Pitkin and Eagle counties since 2014, including the January incident, though she’s been convicted of the crime twice, according to court records.
She’s also been charged with theft at least six times in Pitkin County since 2008, according to media reports and court records.
Twice during that time, retail employees at downtown Aspen shops followed White after the alleged theft and turned her in to police. In one case, a clothing store employee recognized White two years after suspecting her of the theft of an expensive pullover, then followed her on foot to her Porsche and wrote down the license number for police.
White also has been accused of stealing food from Roxy’s Market, a faux-leather coat from the St. Regis Hotel and skis from the base of Aspen Highlands. Court records were unclear as to how many times White has been convicted of theft.
A Pitkin County sheriff’s deputy arrested White on April 25 at her home in Woody Creek, and she was later transported to jail in Eagle County, according to sheriff’s records.
A text message sent Friday to White seeking comment was not returned.