{"id":2450161,"date":"2019-10-21T22:24:00","date_gmt":"2019-10-22T04:24:00","guid":{"rendered":"https:\/\/www.aspentimes.com\/news\/man-who-rammed-cop-car-near-aspen-apologizes\/"},"modified":"2019-10-21T22:24:00","modified_gmt":"2019-10-22T04:24:00","slug":"man-who-rammed-cop-car-near-aspen-apologizes","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/alwaysmountaintime.com\/kspn\/local-news\/man-who-rammed-cop-car-near-aspen-apologizes\/","title":{"rendered":"Man who rammed cop car near Aspen apologizes"},"content":{"rendered":"
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A former Vail resident who rammed a police officer\u2019s car in Snowmass Canyon nearly two years ago while on cocaine and methamphetamines will spend the next five years on supervised probation.<\/p>\n

Justin Helmer, 44, pleaded guilty in April to attempted second-degree assault, menacing and vehicular eluding causing injury, all felonies, and could have faced years in prison, said Don Nottingham, Aspen prosecutor.<\/p>\n

\u201cThis was extremely dangerous behavior by Mr. Helmer,\u201d Nottingham said Monday in Pitkin County District Court. \u201cFrom his statements, it was clear he was not in his right mind.\u201d<\/p>\n

However, Helmer \u201chas engaged in a significant amount of treatment since that time,\u201d and Nottingham said he\u2019s \u201chesitantly hopeful\u201d he will continue down that path.<\/p>\n

For his part, Helmer apologized to both the officer whose car he hit and a family of seven in another car he also ran into.<\/p>\n

\u201cI could have never lived with myself if I killed someone that night,\u201d he said.<\/p>\n

A Basalt police officer clocked Helmer driving his Ford F-350 pickup 96 mph on Highway 82 in late November 2017<\/a>, but wasn\u2019t able to get him to pull over until Snowmass Canyon. At that point, however, Helmer put the large truck into reverse when the officer got out of the car and rammed into it.<\/p>\n

Nottingham said the officer faced a split-second choice of firing his weapon, launching himself down a 30- to 40-foot cliff or diving into his car. Fortunately, he chose to jump into the car and was not injured, though his wife later urged him to quit because it appeared Helmer had tried to kill him, the prosecutor said.<\/p>\n

At the time, Helmer had stopped taking medication for bipolar disorder, had been up for six days straight and had been taking cocaine and methamphetamines, which led to psychosis, said his lawyer, Ingrid Alt.<\/p>\n

According to police reports, he said he felt like he was in a cartoon, needed to destroy a gas line and that \u201cdevils and shadows\u201d were talking to him.<\/p>\n

Helmer was finally taken into custody at the Brush Creek Lot at Brush Creek Road and Highway 82.<\/p>\n

He plans to live with family in Durango, and his probation will be transferred to La Plata County if the probation department doesn\u2019t object.<\/p>\n

In other court news Monday:<\/p>\n

\u2022 A South Korean man who came to Aspen this summer and broke into an area home before making strange statements about the former CEO of the Aspen Institute and the end of the world will be escorted home by representatives of his embassy.<\/p>\n

That\u2019s according to his public defender, Ashley Andrews, who said Monday that \u201cagents\u201d from the South Korean consulate will come to the Pitkin County Jail, escort Yoseop Kim to the airport and put him on a flight to South Korea. Members of his family also will come to Aspen and assist in the procedure, she said.<\/p>\n

The operation needs to occur before Oct. 28, when Kim\u2019s U.S. visa expires, Andrews said.<\/p>\n

Nottingham did not object to the procedure and said a felony burglary charge would be dismissed once his office received confirmation that Kim had arrived in South Korea. Kim had been found incompetent to stand trial in the United States and was scheduled to be restored to competency before Monday\u2019s proceedings, he said.<\/p>\n

Nottingham said Monday that Kim\u2019s chances of restoration will likely be far more successful in his home country with his family nearby.<\/p>\n

Kim was arrested Aug. 4 after a property manager found him inside a home in the 800 block of Spruce Street. He told a Pitkin County sheriff\u2019s deputy that he\u2019d taken a shower at the home, helped himself to nachos and said \u201cthe world would come to an end in eight years if he did not come to Aspen.\u201d<\/p>\n

Records indicated he\u2019d flown from South Korea to Seattle on July 31 and had a Korean copy of Walter Isaacson\u2019s recent book on Leonardo DaVinci in his backpack when he was arrested in Aspen. He told Aspen police officers, who had contact with him before his arrest, that he was looking for Isaacson, according to an affidavit filed in Pitkin County District Court.<\/p>\n

\u2022 A 36-year-old man pleaded guilty Monday to breaking in to his ex-girlfriend\u2019s home while she was sleeping in March<\/a> and was sentenced to 18 months of supervised probation.<\/p>\n

If Edward Wegmann successfully completes the probationary sentence, the felony charge of first-degree criminal trespassing will be wiped from his record under a plea deal with the District Attorney\u2019s Office.<\/p>\n

Wegmann said he suffers from a traumatic brain injury, though Nottingham said he\u2019s gone through significant counseling in an effort to address his issues \u201cand make sure it doesn\u2019t happen again.\u201d<\/p>\n

The ex-girlfriend reported waking up to find Wegmann standing in her bedroom and told police she was \u201cterrified.\u201d<\/p>\n

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

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

A former Vail resident who rammed a police officer\u2019s car in Snowmass Canyon nearly two years ago while on cocaine and methamphetamines will spend the next five years on supervised probation. Justin Helmer, 44, pleaded guilty in April to attempted second-degree assault, menacing and vehicular eluding causing injury, all felonies, and could have faced years […]<\/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":["post-2450161","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","category-local-news"],"acf":[],"publishpress_future_action":{"enabled":false,"date":"2026-08-19 12:23:03","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\/2450161","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=2450161"}],"version-history":[{"count":0,"href":"https:\/\/alwaysmountaintime.com\/kspn\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/2450161\/revisions"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/alwaysmountaintime.com\/kspn\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=2450161"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/alwaysmountaintime.com\/kspn\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=2450161"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/alwaysmountaintime.com\/kspn\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=2450161"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}