LEADVILLE — Duane Sandridge’s 30-plus year crime spree continued at a Lake County trailhead.
Sandridge, 50, of Salt Lake City, was headed from Utah to Kansas where he was planning to move in with his mother. He didn’t get that far.
It was Sept. 8, 2017, when Sandridge and his accomplice William Putnam pulled into the La Plata Peak trailhead near Twin Lakes and parked next to a pickup truck. Sandridge told Putnam to “keep an eye out” and opened the truck’s driver side door and climbed in.
The truck’s owner was in the back watching a movie and heard Sandridge rummaging through the truck’s cab.
The owner confronted Sandridge, who pulled what the victim thought was a gun and threatened to shoot him. When the victim backed up, Sandridge and Putnam took off.
They made it to the Front Range where Lakewood police arrested them.
Sandridge pleaded guilty to felony menacing and felony criminal trespass.
In his final court hearing Friday, Lake County District Court Judge Jonathan Shamis sentenced Sandridge to 11 years in state prison.
The District Attorney’s office said that Sandridge’s 30-plus year criminal history spans several states, and includes in theft, credit card fraud, larceny, burglary, and auto theft.