{"id":2452666,"date":"2019-12-28T00:00:00","date_gmt":"2019-12-28T07:00:00","guid":{"rendered":"https:\/\/www.aspentimes.com\/?p=318358"},"modified":"2019-12-28T00:00:00","modified_gmt":"2019-12-28T07:00:00","slug":"cash-gift-proves-too-costly-for-ousted-pitkin-county-deputy","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/alwaysmountaintime.com\/kspn\/local-news\/cash-gift-proves-too-costly-for-ousted-pitkin-county-deputy\/","title":{"rendered":"Cash gift proves too costly for ousted Pitkin County deputy"},"content":{"rendered":"
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A $400 gift to a school resource officer has cost him his job.<\/p>\n

Pitkin County Sheriff Joe DiSalvo confirmed this week that Paul Hufnagle, the school resource officer at Aspen High for 12 years, is no longer under his employment after the deputy didn\u2019t respond to recent texts, emails, or certified mail from the Sheriff\u2019s Office. He also did not show up for two meetings to discuss his job status. DiSalvo said Hufnagle was essentially terminated Tuesday for abandoning his job.<\/p>\n

The decision came after the Sheriff\u2019s Office placed Hufnagle, known casually as \u201cHuff,\u201d on unpaid administrative leave Dec. 4. DiSalvo said he took the action after Hufnagle, 55, misled authorities when they confronted him about accepting a cash payment that was eight times the amount allowed for public officials under state law. The money came from a parent group and was meant as a show of appreciation.<\/p>\n

\u201cRight now we have had no communication with Huff,\u201d DiSalvo said Thursday, \u201cand not for lack of trying.\u201d<\/p>\n

After DiSalvo placed Hufnagle on leave<\/a>, the sheriff said the suspension was not related to the safety or security of students on the campus.<\/p>\n

This week, DiSalvo expanded on the reasons behind Hufnagle\u2019s leave and subsequent termination.<\/p>\n

\u201cHe accepted a gift inappropriately, and there are ethical issues that followed that,\u201d the sheriff said, noting the matter remains under investigation.<\/p>\n

Hufnagle has not returned repeated messages from The Aspen Times seeking comment.<\/p>\n

And because of the pending probe, Pitkin County on Monday denied an Aspen Times Colorado Open Records Act request made Dec. 18, seeking a summary of the Sheriff\u2019s Office internal investigation into Hufnagle. The request cited House Bill 19-1119, which Gov. Jared Polis signed into law in April giving greater public access to information about the job performance of law enforcement officers in Colorado.<\/p>\n

It was another Colorado law that DiSalvo leaned on when it came to disciplining Hufnagle.<\/p>\n

Under the Colorado Gift Law<\/a>, government employees \u2014 which \u201cmeans any employee, including independent contractors, of the state executive branch, the state legislative branch, a state agency, a public institution of higher education, or any local government, except a member of the general assembly or a public officer\u201d \u2014 cannot accept anything having more than $50 in value during the calendar year.<\/p>\n

As a deputy, Huffnagle was an employee of local government, effectively putting him under the category of employees not eligible to accept such gifts.<\/p>\n

In November, he accepted a $400 cash payment from a group of parents who made identical donations to more than 80 employees of the high school as part of a teacher-appreciation luncheon.<\/p>\n

The money has been given out on an annual basis for the past four or five years, said Tharyn Mulberry, principal of Aspen High. The money does not come from school coffers but instead a group of philanthropic parents, he said.<\/p>\n

\u201cIt\u2019s where a cash gift is given to every member of the high school,\u201d Mulberry said Friday. \u201cAnd it\u2019s done to boost morale.\u201d<\/p>\n

The amount has grown from $100 per teacher and other staff members to $400, said Mulberry, who confirmed that Hufnagle accepted payment.<\/p>\n

Hufnagle\u2019s acceptance of the money came to DiSalvo\u2019s attention through another deputy, he said. When Hufnagle was asked about the money, he told authorities he had donated it to a local nonprofit, yet further investigation showed that not to be the case, DiSalvo said.<\/p>\n

The sheriff said it appears Hufnagle has no desire to discuss the matter further.<\/p>\n

\u201cHuff is not commenting, so we have to assume he doesn\u2019t want to work here anymore,\u201d DiSalvo said, adding the Sheriff\u2019s Office \u201cnow has reason that he is not in the county, and he may have left the state.\u201d<\/p>\n

Mulberry said the last time he saw Hufnagle was Dec. 5 at a holiday event in Snowmass Village. Mulberry said he was not aware that Hufnagle is no longer with the Sheriff\u2019s Office until he was informed of it by a reporter.<\/p>\n

\u201cTo be fair, I thought he was coming back,\u201d Mulberry said.<\/p>\n

Mulberry said Hufnagle made healthy connections with the students over the years.<\/p>\n

\u201cHe had a lot of relationships with students that were positive,\u201d he said. \u201cAnd many students asked where he\u2019d been. He was really good at connecting with kids that weren\u2019t in the mainstream. That was his strength.\u201d<\/p>\n

For the time being, the high school will be down one SRO, but DiSalvo said Deputy Monique Merritt, who joined at the start of the fall semester, will continue to supervise the program.<\/p>\n

\u201cAfter school starts in January, we\u2019ll decide what the next steps are,\u201d the sheriff said.<\/p>\n

rcarroll@aspetimes.com<\/a><\/p>\n

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

A $400 gift to a school resource officer has cost him his job. Pitkin County Sheriff Joe DiSalvo confirmed this week that Paul Hufnagle, the school resource officer at Aspen High for 12 years, is no longer under his employment after the deputy didn\u2019t respond to recent texts, emails, or certified mail from the Sheriff\u2019s […]<\/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-2452666","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","category-local-news"],"acf":[],"publishpress_future_action":{"enabled":false,"date":"2026-08-18 23:45:51","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\/2452666","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=2452666"}],"version-history":[{"count":0,"href":"https:\/\/alwaysmountaintime.com\/kspn\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/2452666\/revisions"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/alwaysmountaintime.com\/kspn\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=2452666"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/alwaysmountaintime.com\/kspn\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=2452666"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/alwaysmountaintime.com\/kspn\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=2452666"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}