{"id":2448982,"date":"2019-09-20T21:00:00","date_gmt":"2019-09-21T03:00:00","guid":{"rendered":"https:\/\/www.aspentimes.com\/?p=313202"},"modified":"2019-09-20T21:00:00","modified_gmt":"2019-09-21T03:00:00","slug":"judge-accepts-internet-stars-lenient-deal","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/alwaysmountaintime.com\/kspn\/local-news\/judge-accepts-internet-stars-lenient-deal\/","title":{"rendered":"Judge accepts internet star\u2019s \u2018lenient\u2019 deal"},"content":{"rendered":"
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Internet star Cameron Dallas, center, appears in Pitkin County District Court with Aspen prosecutor Don Nottingham, left, and Dallas\u2019 attorney, Pat Mika, right, on Friday, September 20, 2019. Dallas pleaded guilty to disorderly conduct in connection with an assault at an Aspen hotel in December. (Kelsey Brunner\/The Aspen Times)<\/strong>
Kelsey Brunner\/The Aspen Times<\/em><\/figcaption><\/div>\n<\/figure>\n

A District Court judge looked askance Friday at a particularly forgiving plea deal the District Attorney\u2019s Office offered social media actor and singer Cameron Dallas, who was charged with felony assault.<\/p>\n

\u201cThe disposition in this case gives the court pause because it is, frankly, lenient,\u201d District Judge Chris Seldin said. \u201cThis case has been pled down considerably.\u201d<\/p>\n

Seldin, however, did accept the deal, which allowed Dallas, 25, of Whittier, California, to plead guilty to disorderly conduct, a lower-level misdemeanor, though he was initially charged with felony second-degree assault causing serious bodily injury stemming from a Dec. 29 altercation<\/a> at an Aspen hotel.<\/p>\n

Dallas was sentenced to six months of unsupervised probation and 20 hours of community service, which he may be able to do in the Los Angeles area where he lives.<\/p>\n

He declined to speak in court, though he alluded to his newfound sobriety in a brief comment afterward.<\/p>\n

\u201cFighting\u2019s not worth it,\u201d Dallas said. \u201cStay sober.\u201d<\/p>\n

Deputy District Attorney Don Nottingham told Seldin the 35-year-old victim in the case \u00ad\u2014 who suffered a broken nose and jaw in the altercation with Dallas<\/a> \u2014 was on board with the plea.<\/p>\n

\u201cThe victim lives out of state and wants to put these events behind him,\u201d Nottingham said. \u201cHe would prefer that the events of that night not be brought up in a public setting. He did not want to go to trial.\u201d<\/p>\n

Nottingham said he agreed with the victim.<\/p>\n

\u201cIt wouldn\u2019t behoove him to go through a trial in this case,\u201d he said. \u201cSo I made the offer largely to comply with the victim\u2019s wishes.\u201d<\/p>\n

Dallas and the victim also came to a confidential monetary settlement recently, said Ryan Kalamaya, an Aspen attorney who represents the victim. Kalamaya and Pat Mika, a Colorado Springs-based attorney for Dallas, declined to comment further on the settlement.<\/p>\n

Mika told the judge Friday that Dallas had legitimate defenses in the case, but wanted to avoid the expense and time of a trial. He later said the plea was the best way to resolve the situation.<\/p>\n

\u201cThere are two sides to the story and we can fight it out in a courtroom and create more acrimony,\u201d Mika said. \u201cAnd there are ways to resolve (the situation) that includes the alleged victim\u2019s needs and (Dallas\u2019) needs in the case.\u201d<\/p>\n

Dallas is an actor and singer with millions of followers on Twitter, Instagram, Facebook and YouTube, and starred in one season of a Netflix reality series called \u201cChasing Cameron.\u201d<\/p>\n

He was visiting Aspen with friends when the assault occurred, and spent the night of Dec. 28 at the Bootsy Bellows nightclub, according to an arrest warrant affidavit filed in December in Pitkin County District Court. The victim met the group of friends at the nightclub, where an 18-year-old member of the group invited him back to the Hyatt Grand Aspen where they were staying in the early morning hours of Dec. 29.<\/p>\n

That 18-year-old, however, was arrested by Aspen police for trespassing soon after arriving at the Hyatt. A security guard mistakenly let him and another man into a room that wasn\u2019t theirs and they jumped up and down on beds occupied by two sleeping women they didn\u2019t know, according to the affidavit.<\/p>\n

The victim then asked Dallas and his 19-year-old friend if he could come up to their room and charge his phone. Once in the room, Dallas left to find out more about his friend\u2019s trespassing arrest. When he returned 30 minutes later, his friend told him the then-34-year-old man hit on him, which freaked him out, the affidavit states.<\/p>\n

Dallas told the man to leave and he refused several times. Dallas then lost his temper<\/a>, according to the court document.<\/p>\n

Mika said Friday that the altercation was not motivated by homophobia on Dallas\u2019 part.<\/p>\n

\u201cThere\u2019s no bias or prejudice that Mr. Dallas has toward any minority-represented class,\u201d he said. \u201cI know he looks on the experience as a learning experience and an opportunity to grow.\u201d<\/p>\n

Dallas announced via video posted on social media Aug. 23 that he\u2019d been in rehab and was \u201cgetting help dealing with addiction, anxiety, depression and a bunch of other things, family trauma,\u201d according to the post.<\/p>\n

On Friday during his plea hearing, Seldin asked Dallas if he was suffering from any mental illness.<\/p>\n

\u201cI\u2019m in rehab and stuff, so addiction is a mental illness,\u201d he said.<\/p>\n

Dallas clarified that he was sober and of sound mind and understood what was happening. Mika said Dallas has been sober for 140 days, a process he undertook voluntarily.<\/p>\n

\u201cMr. Dallas has taken it on his own to address an alcohol issue,\u201d he said. \u201cHe\u2019s learned a lot about himself and the problems alcohol created for his life.\u201d<\/p>\n

Mika noted that alcohol played a role in both Dallas\u2019 behavior and that of the victim the night of the altercation.<\/p>\n

Seldin said he hesitated over the plea because it\u2019s more lenient than most other pleas where the original charge is felony assault with bodily injury.<\/p>\n

\u201cEven when there\u2019s mitigating circumstances, any assault that results in bodily injury is serious to the court,\u201d the judge said. \u201cI would normally impose jail even when it\u2019s pled to a misdemeanor assault charge.\u201d<\/p>\n

However, Seldin said he accepted the plea in deference to the DA\u2019s management of the docket, the fact that the victim didn\u2019t want to pursue the case and the defense\u2019s trial argument that the victim may have been legally an intruder in Dallas\u2019 hotel room.<\/p>\n

jauslander@aspentimes.com<\/a><\/p>\n

via:: The Aspen Times<\/a><\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"

Internet star Cameron Dallas, center, appears in Pitkin County District Court with Aspen prosecutor Don Nottingham, left, and Dallas\u2019 attorney, Pat Mika, right, on Friday, September 20, 2019. Dallas pleaded guilty to disorderly conduct in connection with an assault at an Aspen hotel in December. (Kelsey Brunner\/The Aspen Times)Kelsey Brunner\/The Aspen Times A District Court […]<\/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":[49],"tags":[],"class_list":{"0":"post-2448982","1":"post","2":"type-post","3":"status-publish","4":"format-standard","6":"category-local-news"},"acf":[],"publishpress_future_action":{"enabled":false,"date":"2026-06-27 01:47:05","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":"KSPN The Valley's Quality Rock","distributor_original_site_url":"https:\/\/alwaysmountaintime.com\/kspn","push-errors":false,"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/alwaysmountaintime.com\/kspn\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/2448982","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/alwaysmountaintime.com\/kspn\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/alwaysmountaintime.com\/kspn\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/alwaysmountaintime.com\/kspn\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/2"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/alwaysmountaintime.com\/kspn\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=2448982"}],"version-history":[{"count":0,"href":"https:\/\/alwaysmountaintime.com\/kspn\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/2448982\/revisions"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/alwaysmountaintime.com\/kspn\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=2448982"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/alwaysmountaintime.com\/kspn\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=2448982"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/alwaysmountaintime.com\/kspn\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=2448982"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}