Evans, who represents Colorado’s competitive 8th Congressional District, criticized the state’s “radical leftist leaders” in a news release Monday after his resolution passed, saying they have enacted laws that “prioritize illegal immigrants over public safety.”

“The passing of my resolution ensures we condemn all acts of antisemitism and affirms that the free and open collaboration between state and local law enforcement with their federal counterparts is key in preventing future attacks like this,” he said.

All Republicans in Colorado’s congressional delegation voted in favor, except Lauren Boebert, who did not vote.

How is the Colorado congressional delegation voting?

One-hundred-thirteen Democrats, including Colorado's U.S. Reps. Jason Crow and Diana DeGette, voted against Evans' measure. The other two Democrats in Colorado's congressional delegation, U.S. Reps. Brittany Pettersen and Joe Neguse, voted in favor.

DeGette, in a news release, said Evans' resolution "exploits this incident to demonize migrants, celebrate ICE and ignore the real concerns of Jewish Americans."

She said she sided with a separate resolution introduced by Neguse that also condemns the attack but doesn't mention the alleged perpetrator, Mohamed Sabry Soliman, the Egyptian national who used Molotov cocktails to injure more than a dozen people -- some severely -- who were marching along the Pearl Street Mall in solidarity with hostages still being held captive by the militant group Hamas in Gaza.

Soliman faces 118 charges, including dozens of counts of attempted first-degree murder and first-degree assault.

Neguse's resolution has not yet received a vote in the House.

A third resolution introduced by New Jersey Republican U.S. Rep. Jeff Van Drew that condemned the Boulder attack and called for combating antisemitism in the United States passed the House on Monday by a 400-0 vote.

Evans' resolution lays out the various immigrant violations that authorities say were committed by Soliman, 45, since he first came to the country in 2022. He was living in Colorado Springs when authorities say he drove to Boulder on June 1 and targeted the hostage-advocacy group Run for Their Lives.

The attack, the resolution states, "demonstrates the dangers of not removing from the country aliens who fail to comply with the terms of their visas." And it "expresses gratitude to law enforcement officers, including U.S. Immigration and Customs Enforcement personnel, for protecting the homeland."

The votes on the competing resolutions came after a weekend of increasing violence and chaos in Los Angeles, as protesters demonstrated -- and in some cases rioted -- in response to federal immigration authorities acting under orders from the Trump administration arresting groups of suspected immigrants on Friday.

Protesters standing above the closed southbound 101 Freeway threw chunks of concrete, rocks, electric scooters and fireworks at California Highway Patrol officers and their vehicles that were parked on the highway. Officers ran under an overpass to take cover.

Nearby, at least four self-driving Waymo cars were set on fire, sending large plumes of black smoke into the sky and exploding intermittently as the electric vehicles burned.

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Lindell also continued his attacks against Eric Coomer, the former Dominion Voting Systems executive, even as he sought to distance himself from claims that he specifically coordinated attacks against Coomer at a 2021 convention Lindell organized about the conspiracy theory.

Lindell attacked Coomer as merely seeking money and grinding a political ax.

“(I) cost Dr. Coomer what?” Lindell said in response to a question from one of Coomer’s attorneys. “He’s out there suing people for money.”

Coomer filed suit against Lindell in April 2022. He accused Lindell of defaming him in a series of statements and media appearances, causing emotional and physical distress and costing him his career in election security.

Lindell has accused Coomer of treason and said he belongs in jail for being “part of the biggest crime this world has ever seen.” Lindell doubled down on his attacks against Coomer from the witness stand — but argued many of the more salacious statements were because Coomer sued him and Lindell was angry about the “lawfare.”

However, Coomer notes in his lawsuit that Lindell tied him to wider conspiracies about Denver-based Dominion Voting Systems and called him “treasonous” as early as May 2021.

An attorney for Lindell, upon cross-examination, asked if Lindell was perhaps being hyperbolic with some of his rhetoric. Lindell responded that, “In my mind, it’s pretty big. Now, if that’s hyperbole, that’s subjective, I suppose.”

Coomer accuses Lindell of parroting remarks that started with Colorado-based podcaster Joe Oltmann and broadcasting them to a wider audience. Oltmann accused “Eric, the Dominion guy” of coordinating with forces opposed to President Donald Trump to deny his reelection in 2020.

Oltmann repeated the statements during a panel at Lindell’s “Cyber Syposium” that was held in South Dakota in August 2021. On the stand Monday, Lindell sought to distance himself from Oltmann’s statements then. Lindell said he had lost his voice, and left the organizing of the Oltmann’s panel to other people.

“Who put them up there, to this day, I could not tell you,” Lindell said.

“So that’s another thing you’re not taking responsibility for,” Coomer’s attorney, Charles J. Cain, said. “You’re not taking responsibility for what you’ve done to Dr. Coomer, and you’re not taking responsibility for who got up on your stage.”

Coomer’s lawsuit is being heard by a jury in U.S. District Court in Denver. Coomer is asking for a retraction of all defamatory remarks made by Lindell and monetary damages.

Dominion has filed its own series of lawsuits over allegations it rigged the 2020 election against Trump. The company settled one lawsuit with Fox News for nearly $800 million.

Coomer has accused Lindell of seeking to profit from his alleged defamation. His legal team cited examples of him offering promo codes associated with election fraud claims, including this case.

Lindell said his pillow company is on “the razor’s edge” in the fallout of him becoming the face of election fraud and that he now has to borrow money to make payroll.

Testimony resumes Tuesday, and the trial is expected to continue through this week.

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The lawsuit filed Monday against the U.S. Department of Justice and the Bureau of Alcohol, Tobacco, Firearms and Explosives argues that returning the triggers would violate federal law, pose a threat to residents and law enforcement and worsen gun violence. It was filed in federal court in Maryland.

“It’s hard enough for our local law enforcement officials to protect Colorado communities from gun violence without the federal government willfully ignoring the law,” Colorado Attorney General Weiser said in a statement. “The law is clear: machine guns, and devices that turn a semiautomatic weapon into a machine gun, are illegal. We’re suing to stop the ATF and the administration from making our communities more dangerous by distributing thousands of devices that turn firearms into weapons of war.”

There had been several legal battles over the devices, which replace the typical trigger on an AR-15-style rifle. The Biden administration had previously argued the triggers qualify as machine guns under federal law because constant finger pressure on the triggers will keep a rifle firing, essentially creating an illegal machine gun.

Rare Breed Triggers, the maker of the devices, had argued that the ATF was wrong in its classification and ignored demands to stop selling the triggers before being sued by the Biden administration.

The Justice Department reached a deal announced last month with Rare Breed Triggers to allow the sale of forced-reset triggers with. The company was previously represented by David Warrington, Trump’s current White House counsel.

Under the settlement, Rare Breed Triggers agreed not to develop such devices to be used on handguns, according to the Justice Department. The settlement requires the ATF to return triggers that it had seized or that owners had voluntarily surrendered to the government.

The states’ lawsuit is being led by the attorneys general of Delaware, Maryland and New Jersey. Other states involved are Colorado, Hawaii, Illinois, Maine, Massachusetts, Michigan, Minnesota, Nevada, Oregon, Rhode Island, Vermont, Washington, along with the District of Columbia.

The attorneys general in those states are all Democrats, though the office in Hawaii is technically nonpartisan.

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But the road to that reality has been anything but smooth, with a rally last week in Castle Rock decrying the move, a tense town hall meeting at county headquarters that ended in shouts and jeers — and a lawsuit attempting to shut the whole thing down.

Meanwhile, ballots started hitting mailboxes less than a week ago for the June 24 special election. If voters back the idea, the vote would kickstart the drafting of a home-rule charter by a 21-member commission.

A second vote in November would then seek final approval for the charter itself.

Local control has become a mantra of sorts across Colorado in recent years, with cities and counties lashing out — even taking legal action — against a state government they accuse of overreach in matters of local concern. The resistance ranges from the “Second Amendment sanctuary county” movement of six years ago, which conservative counties launched in response to new gun control laws, to last month’s lawsuit against the state and Gov. Jared Polis by Aurora and five suburban cities. They were attempting to block two recent land-use laws aimed at increasing housing density.

Commissioner George Teal, one of the chief proponents of home-rule authority for the county of nearly 400,000, said the time has come for Douglas County to assert its independence from a state legislature that has shifted decidedly to the left over the last decade.

Home-rule authority, Teal said, will give Douglas County greater legal standing to take on state laws that its leaders believe go too far. It will represent a “shifting of the burden” onto the state, requiring officials to come after the county if the state believes its authority is being usurped — rather than the other way around.

Douglas County has sued Colorado twice recently over disagreements involving property tax valuations and the level of cooperation local law enforcement can give federal immigration authorities. The county lost both cases.

“We will be an independent legal entity under state law — and we are not that as a statutory county,” Teal said. “Home rule is the very mechanism of local control.”

Opponents, operating under the Stop the Power Grab banner, say the run-up to this month’s election has been anything but transparent and open. They accuse the commissioners of quietly concocting the home-rule plan over a series of more than a dozen meetings starting late last year — and then rubber-stamping the decision at a public hearing in late March. That meeting lasted mere minutes.

“What this has brought out in us is the question of — why now?” said Kelly Mayr, a nearly three-decade resident of Highlands Ranch and a member of Stop the Power Grab. “Why are they rushing it? If this is a good idea for the county, why would we not take our time?”

Three Douglas County residents, including state Rep. Bob Marshall and former Commissioner Lora Thomas, sued the Board of County Commissioners in April, alleging multiple violations of Colorado’s open meetings laws. They asked the court to stop the June 24 election from going forward.

But a judge sided with Douglas County last month, saying he didn’t see evidence that the board violated open meetings laws and ruling that a preliminary injunction to stop the election would “sacrifice the public’s right to vote.”

Marshall, a Democrat who represents Highlands Ranch, says the fight is not over, and he expects to prevail in the court case at the appellate level.

In the meantime, he is in the running as one of 49 candidates vying to fill the 21 seats on the commission that would be tasked with drafting Douglas County’s home-rule charter — assuming voters give the OK to the idea on the same June 24 ballot. All three Douglas County commissioners are also running for the charter commission.

“If elected, my main goal will be to ensure transparency,” Marshall told The Denver Post. “There has been none in this process as yet.”

The June election is projected to cost Douglas County around $500,000.

Weld, Pitkin first to adopt home rule

The state first approved home-rule powers for municipalities in 1902, and it extended the same authority to counties in 1970. Until then, counties were considered a statutory creation of the legislature and had to follow state law without exception.

Sixty Colorado counties still do.

Just two — at the opposite ends of the ideological spectrum — took advantage of the new designation in the decade after the law passed: Weld and Pitkin. Denver and Broomfield, though, have de facto home-rule status because of their combined city-and-county structure.

First to take up the home-rule mantle in Colorado was Weld County in 1976. County Attorney Bruce Barker said its three districts had essentially balkanized around that time, each running its own public works department and making its own purchasing decisions.

“The goal was to make things more efficient,” Barker said about the effort behind the switch.

The new charter included a one-of-a-kind five-member Weld County Council, separate from the Board of County Commissioners. The body sets salaries of elected county officials and fills commissioner vacancies. It can also suspend an elected official who has been criminally charged or indicted and it reviews conflicts of interest between county officers, appointees and employees.

“Remember, there was a complete distrust of government after Watergate,” Barker said of the era. “They wanted to have this County Council as a watchdog group.”

Pitkin County made its transition to home-rule governance in 1978, largely in response to concerns about rapid population growth and the desire to conserve threatened natural habitat in the Roaring Fork Valley, said County Manager Jon Peacock. His very role was created by Pitkin County’s new home-rule charter.

The county, home to ritzy Aspen, requires under its charter a vote of the people before it issues debt, as happened with a recent ballot measure that sought expansion of the county’s landfill.

“Home rule gives authority to counties to decide how they are going to organize to carry out the powers and responsibilities that are defined in state statute,” Peacock said. “We cannot exercise authority that is not given to us by state law.”

According to a briefing paper from the state’s nonpartisan Legislative Council Staff, home-rule authority in Colorado was designed to place several administrative functions under counties’ purview. They involve “finances and property, debts and expenses, and the powers and duties of officials, including elections, terms of office, and compensation.”

“In general, home rule ordinances addressing local matters supersede state law,” the briefing paper states. “However, in matters of statewide or mixed concern, state laws may take precedence over conflicting home rule ordinances.”

Weld County learned that the hard way earlier this year when the Colorado Supreme Court struck down a redistricting plan the county had put into play two years ago. Officials drew the boundaries of commissioners’ districts without adhering to a 2021 state law that required it to follow a different protocol.

The high court concluded that redistricting “relates to the county’s function, not the county’s structure.”

“And because the Colorado Constitution requires home rule counties to carry out statutorily mandated functions, home rule counties, like Weld, must comply with the redistricting statutes,” the court ruled.

How much more power would the county get?

Metropolitan State University political science professor Robert Preuhs said it’s clear from the language of Colorado’s home-rule statute and court cases on the issue that “you’re not getting much more policy latitude” with home-rule status.

“Broader issues like gun control and immigration enforcement and police cooperation with (immigration authorities) are still going to be constrained by state law,” Preuhs said. “You are still a creature of the state, but with more internal flexibility — although Douglas County seems intent on testing that.”

Teal, the Douglas County commissioner, said there are bills passed in the statehouse every legislative session that explicitly exempt home-rule counties from having to comply.

“I would like that opportunity for the citizens of Douglas County to take advantage of these exemptions,” he said.

And there are other laws that sit in questionable territory, Teal said. Home-rule status “gives us new tools in the tool belt. At the very least, it allows the county to challenge the state.”

Teal said he could see the county pushing back on Colorado’s mandatory retail bag fee, the way property assessments are calculated and limits that have been placed on law enforcement.

But first, voters must weigh in. As the campaign over home rule heats up with billboards and signs sprouting up along Interstate 25 and other places in Douglas County, the political temperature is rising as well.

At a May 28 town hall, Commissioner Abe Laydon laid out the stakes in front of 100 or so people in the commissioners’ hearing room in Castle Rock.

“Are we OK with how the state handled COVID-19 and the pandemic?” he asked. “Are we OK with how the state has handled illegal immigration?”

There was some sympathy from the audience, but others were skeptical. When the hourlong session ended, several people stood up and demanded that more of their questions on home rule be answered. Each side accused the other side of “fear-mongering.”

“What are you afraid of?” one attendant yelled as Laydon called for order.

Last week, newly released campaign finance data stirred up a new angle of attack for home-rule opponents. The Yes on Local Control committee raised $110,000 from just five donors — one of them Teal’s wife, Laura. The bulk of the total — $100,000 — came from just two developers.

By contrast, Stop the Power Grab has raised just over $30,000 from several hundred individual donors.

That has Marshall, the state representative from Highlands Ranch, questioning just how much grassroots support the home-rule movement has in Douglas County. And layer on that a recent survey of nearly 1,800 residents conducted for the county that showed respondents opposing home rule by a 54% to 44% margin; some information, including the survey’s margin of error, wasn’t available.

“Where is the outpouring of support for home rule the commissioners claim?” Marshall said.

Amanda Budimlya, who grew up in Colorado and has lived near Sedalia for a dozen years, has been dismayed by the state’s sharp turn to the left and supports the home-rule effort. There will be two opportunities — the June and November elections — for residents to weigh in, she said, giving everyone plenty of time to air out their concerns and grievances.

“It gives us standing so we can try and put things in the charter that we want to protect — like our liberty and rights,” she said of home rule.

Budimlya, 50, said it’s rich that the opposition adopted the name Stop the Power Grab for their campaign in a state where political power has only drifted in one direction in recent years.

“There’s already a power grab happening — the governor, the House and the Senate — it’s all Democrat-run,” she said of Colorado’s political makeup. “Any conservative voice is railroaded.”

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Investigators unspooled a macabre, nearly decade-long scheme by Sunset Mesa Funeral Directors owner, Megan Hess, and her mother, Shirley Koch, to sell hundreds of bodies and body parts without the consent or knowledge of grieving families.

The pair admitted to meeting with families under the auspices of performing cremations. Instead, they harvested body parts, even entire bodies, to sell through their other business, Donor Services.

They did this for eight years, handing mothers and children, nephews and best friends containers of cremated human remains — cremains — that didn’t contain their loved ones’ ashes. All the while, they were cashing in on the donated dead.

Hess and Koch each pleaded guilty to one count of mail fraud and will spend 20 and 15 years in prison, respectively.

The federal investigation shone a light on the largely unregulated body broker business in America and Colorado’s lax funeral home regulations. The morbid spectacle spawned podcasts, documentaries and multiple changes to state law.

Now the case is finally nearing closure after a federal judge in April re-sentenced the mother and daughter. But because they never went to trial, the public did not get to hear from a host of relevant parties or see much of the evidence that the government would have presented in court.

The FBI and U.S. Attorney’s Office have denied records requests from The Denver Post and other news agencies, saying the only information available would come from documents already filed in the case.

A recent Denver Post review of the case file included a trove of unpublished accounts from former Sunset Mesa employees, who described the bizarre, unethical and illegal practices of the notorious funeral home.

The Post also interviewed another former employee whose story was not included in court records. Together, they provide one of the most comprehensive accounts to date of the people who worked for Hess and Koch.

In addition, the case file includes emails between Hess and body broker customers, detailing the back-and-forth as the funeral director marketed stolen bodies.

Here are those stories:

JoAnn Cocozza — Shirley Koch’s assistant

Investigators interviewed JoAnn Cocozza on Jan. 16, 2018, just a few weeks before the FBI raided the Montrose funeral home.

She recalled a 2013 incident, when Hess and Koch told her that a family was coming in to pick up cremains.

The only problem?

The ashes were labeled with a name that Cocozza recognized as being a body in the cooler awaiting processing. Sure enough, the body was still there.

Cocozza told the FBI that she gave the family cremains — as instructed.

The funeral home operators kept a large bag of cremated remains in the back of the building that they used to fill up small keepsake containers for grieving family members, Cocozza said. Hess and Koch told families that these were the ashes of their loved ones.

They did this over and over again across a long period of time, the assistant said, always using the same bag of cremains.

She recounted a specific instance when the bloodwork on a body that had already been sold came back showing it had been infected with hepatitis. Cocozza expressed concern that she or others could have contracted the disease from handling the body.

“Don’t worry about it,” Koch allegedly told Cocozza, according to court documents. “Just do your job; you won’t get it.”

Koch and Hess did not tell anyone about the hepatitis finding, Cocozza told investigators.

She said Koch mentioned they were making money off gold teeth extracted from bodies. Koch bragged that they made $40,000 by selling the gold, using the money to take a trip to Disneyland.

“I get to cash these in and keep the money,” Koch once said, according to Cocozza’s interview.

Koch and Hess pushed families hard to donate their loved ones’ bodies, she said, even if people said they weren’t interested.

“It’s hard, but don’t worry, their body is just a shell,” Koch allegedly said. She and Hess insisted that the donated bodies helped cure diseases and progress science. They never told families that the bodies were sold for a profit, Cocozza told authorities.

Body brokers — also known as non-transplant tissue banks — are different from the organ and tissue transplant industry, which the U.S. government heavily regulates. No federal law, however, governs the sale of cadavers or body parts for use in research or education.

In 2017, Koch gave Cocozza a silver vial that she said contained the ashes of Cocozza’s husband. Cocozza, however, told investigators she already believed the funeral home had given her his ashes years earlier.

Hess and Koch sometimes asked her to bring forms to the Montrose County offices to get death certificates. She knew, though, that the bodies had already been processed and shipped off, she told investigators.

“If they ask, make sure you say they are still at the funeral home,” Hess and Koch said, according to Cocozza’s interview.

Cocozza could not be reached for comment.

Amanda Rackay — Megan Hess’s secretary

Amanda Rackay gave testimony to authorities on Oct. 20, 2017.

After interviewing for the job at Sunset Mesa, Rackay recalled Hess saying, “I’m paying taxes, don’t worry. It’s all legal.”

Rackay’s duties included inputting information into an electronic death registration system. Hess told her to enter all dispositions as “burial” or “cremation.” The secretary later realized, she said, that there was also an option for “donation” in the system.

She asked Hess if she should use that designation for bodies donated through Donor Services, the body-broker business that Hess and Koch ran in addition to the funeral home.

“You don’t need to worry about that,” Hess allegedly told Rackay. “Let’s (label) them all as cremation.”

Rackay told investigators that she overheard Hess tell Koch that she was sick of the state tracking the body donations.

Rackay could not be reached for comment on her testimony.

Sharla Downing — Megan Hess’s public relations representative

Sharla Downing gave an interview to authorities on July 15, 2018.

Hess directed Downing to conduct a publicity campaign targeting the largest nursing homes in Montrose. The goal: have staff make positive remarks about Hess and Sunset Mesa so residents and their families would turn to the funeral home for business.

Downing said Hess provided her with fliers with the slogan, “Our family taking care of your family.”

The funeral home director had Downing give presentations about Sunset Mesa and Donor Services. She told Downing to stay vague when describing donations, using the term “tissue” to encompass anything from skin to knees to elbow joints.

Hess never spoke about selling whole body parts unless it was a whole body donation, Downing told authorities. In those cases, the body would be going to a specific research university, which would then send back cremains. Hess said she had connections with multiple universities, including Harvard, Downing said.

Hess made grandiose statements about how these donations helped people, Downing said — statements authorities later said were not true. Bodies from Sunset Mesa went to scientific and research companies; they were not used for transplants.

But the funeral director told people a spine donated to a disabled veteran in Florida helped the person walk again, Hess told investigators. Donated eyes helped the blind see, Hess claimed.

Older adults in these presentations asked how their bodies could be used for donations. Hess instructed Downing to tell them that the skin of an elderly person was better for skin grafting because it was already stretched out.

“Hess would pull on her arm skin as she described this,” Downing told investigators.

Audiences also asked whether Hess, Sunset Mesa or Donor Services received any financial benefit from the donated bodies. Downing said Hess initially replied that she only took a small shipping fee and “does it all for the good of the community.” Another time, Hess said the business may take a small recovery fee.

In reality, prosecutors later said, Hess made substantial money from these body donations by selling them.

Downing could not be reached for comment on her testimony.

Scott Beilfuss — Sunset Mesa contractor

In 2016 and 2017, Scott Beilfuss worked for a third-party marketing company that contracted with Sunset Mesa. His job involved meeting with prospective clients and discussing their future funeral needs.

In between those meetings, Beilfuss hung out for hours at Sunset Mesa with Hess and Koch.

“I always said I would write a musical about Sunset Mesa,” he said in an interview, chuckling. “It would be like the ‘Sweeney Todd’ or ‘Little Shop of Horrors.’ It was so crazy.”

Koch spent much of the day in the back of the funeral home, dismembering bodies, Beilfuss said. She learned the craft from YouTube.

Beilfuss said he sat in the funeral home’s planning room and Koch popped in, asking if he’d like to see her work. He always declined the invitation.

“I was a paper person, not a body person,” Beilfuss said.

Hess, though, was the “driver and the mastermind of the whole thing,” he said.

The two made presentations to older folks together, trying to drum up business. Hess was good at it, Beilfuss said. She was creative, ambitious and competitive — always looking for a way to scale up their business.

“Megan always used to say, ‘We’re cremating miracles,’ ” he said. “That was their tagline.”

At the beginning, it seemed to Beilfuss like Hess had good motives. As it went on, he said, it became more about money.

“It transitioned from serving the public to building up some income to show that she was successful,” Beilfuss said. “She wanted to be viewed as a successful business person.”

Now a Grand Junction City Council member, Beilfuss said he feels Koch had no nefarious intentions. She was just doing her job.

Hess, on the other hand?

“I don’t know she believed she was doing anything wrong,” he said.

‘Get ready!!!!!!’

The court documents also included emails showing how Hess negotiated and sold donated body parts to prospective buyers.

In one email from September 2013, Hess said she could deliver a “very nice, younger muscled donor” for $1,500. The body would be embalmed and delivered to an unspecified buyer in Fort Collins.

“I wish to be your partner in donation, so if there are orders such as matching whole legs (which I have pairs on-hand), whole hearts, torsos or other tissue that you are looking for, please let me know,” Hess wrote. “I can adjust pricing accordingly to meet your needs. If I have a donor you are interested in but need different pricing to make it work for your end, let me know.”

In 2014, Hess sent the same customer an email with the subject “female torso pics.”

“I’m sorry that I haven’t sent photos,” the funeral director wrote. “I have had terrible donors for your process. Meeting with hospice on the 4th… opening the flood gates of donors. They have 4-5 deaths a day. Get ready!!!!!! I have 3 spines when needed.”

In another email, Hess told a customer she hoped to send them 150 to 200 donors per year, if not more.

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Mayenssi Montiel, a Little Rock, Arkansas, resident, filed the proposed action lawsuit against Parking Revenue Recovery Services in U.S. District Court for the District of Colorado, alleging she parked in a parking garage in Little Rock on April 27 and overstayed her payment by four minutes.

But rather than charging Montiel the additional $4 for the extra hour on site, Parking Revenue Recovery Services issued her a fine of $70 — a 1,750% price increase, the complaint states.

“The ‘notice fee’ collection scheme is unlawful because it allows PRRS to inflate any potential debt (unpaid parking) by orders of magnitude without any authority to do so, and tricks and intimidates individuals into paying the inflated ‘outstanding balance’ fine by threatening further fines or legal action, which PRRS has no authority to undertake,” Montiel’s lawsuit alleges.

Parking Revenue Recovery Services differs from traditional parking structures in significant ways. Rather than collecting a ticket when you drive in and paying for parking on your way out, PRRS lots don’t have any gates. Instead, cameras capture a driver’s license plate when they enter and exit the lot.

There are no parking rates posted in the lot, the lawsuit alleges. The driver must scan a QR code to enter payment.

The removal of gates, the use of inconspicuous signs requiring payment and the nondisclosure of the fines is an “intentional business strategy” used by the company to “manufacture and encourage an individual’s non-compliance” so the company can “coerce” fines from an individual and generate higher returns for itself, the complaint alleges.

When individuals fail to pay for parking, the company issues them a “notice of non-compliance” through the mail. The goal of the notice, the lawsuit alleges, is to inflate the amount owed and intimidate customers into paying these inflated fines.

The notices also include threats of towing, booting and further legal action if the fee is not promptly paid — actions that the company cannot legally take, the complaint states.

A PRRS representative declined to comment Friday, citing the ongoing litigation.

The lawsuit comes less than two years after the company reached a settlement with Colorado’s attorney general over the collection of illegal fines.

Parking Revenue Recovery Services “routinely tried to collect fines from consumers who entered the wrong license plate but paid for parking, paid for parking after the company’s 15-minute grace period or didn’t park in the company’s lots at all but received parking notices anyway,” Attorney General Phil Weiser’s office said in August 2023.

The company agreed to issue over $31,000 in refunds to the more than 400 consumers who paid inappropriately collected fines. Parking Revenue Recovery Services also dismissed any parking notices for individuals who entered the wrong license plate or were issued notices in error.

The company’s co-founder, John Conway, disputed the AG’s characterization that they engaged in illegal behavior, saying errors account for less than 1% of their notices issued.

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Boulder County’s district attorney on Thursday charged the suspect in the Pearl Street Mall terror attack with more than 100 criminal counts related to the antisemitic firebombing that injured 15 people and a dog.

Mohamed Sabry Soliman, a 45-year-old Egyptian immigrant who officials say was living in the U.S. illegally, faces 118 charges, including dozens of counts of attempted first-degree murder and first-degree assault.

Sixty-two of the charges concern offenses against victims, including 28 counts of attempted first-degree murder. Two attempted-murder counts — one for being a premeditated crime, the other as an act of extreme indifference — each applied to 14 of the injured victims.

Prosecutors levied a third-degree assault charge on behalf of the 15th person who was hurt in Sunday’s attack. Soliman was also charged with multiple counts of attempted assault and use of incendiary devices — plus a misdemeanor animal-cruelty count because a dog was injured in the attack.

The remaining 56 counts relate to violent crimes that could cause serious bodily injury or death

“The charges reflect the evidence that we have regarding this horrific attack that took place, and the seriousness of it,” District Attorney Michael Dougherty said at a news conference.

Soliman, who is being held on $10 million bail, remains in custody and appeared for a brief hearing Thursday afternoon in the courtroom at the Boulder County jail. His attorney, Kathryn Herold, waived a formal reading of the charges.

His preliminary hearing has been set for July 15.

Soliman also faces a federal hate crime count in connection with the attack, and is scheduled to appear in U.S. District Court in Denver on Friday in that case.

He is accused of shouting “Free Palestine” and throwing Molotov cocktails at people who had gathered on the popular pedestrian mall Sunday for a weekly demonstration urging the release of Israeli hostages held by Hamas in Gaza. He told police he wanted “to kill all Zionist people,” according to an arrest affidavit.

Soliman planned the attack for more than a year and initially sought to carry out a mass shooting against the group, law enforcement officials said. He instead armed himself with Molotov cocktails and a makeshift flamethrower — made from a weed sprayer — after he could not buy a gun because of his immigration status.

All 15 of the injured victims are expected to survive, Boulder officials have said. They range in age from 25 to 88, and include eight women and seven men.

Three people remained in the UCHealth University of Colorado Hospital’s burn unit on Thursday, a spokesperson said.

Federal immigration authorities on Tuesday detained Soliman’s wife and five children — all Egyptian citizens — and attempted to place them in expedited removal proceedings.

Department of Homeland Security officials have said Soliman overstayed his tourist visa and remained in the U.S. illegally, though his family’s attorney said they appeared to have a pending asylum case that allowed them to remain in the country legally.

A federal judge in Denver issued an order Wednesday temporarily halting their deportation.

Soliman’s wife, Hayam Salah Alsaid Ahmed El Gamal, 41, and the couple’s five children were being held at an immigration processing center in Texas, their attorney said.

Homeland Security Assistant Secretary Tricia McLaughlin called the family’s claims “absurd” and “an attempt to delay justice.” She said the entire family was living in the U.S. illegally.

The attack has rattled Colorado’s Jewish community, prompting increased security at synagogues, community centers and other gatherings. The Boulder Jewish Festival is set to take place Sunday on the Pearl Street Mall, and authorities said there will be a heavy police presence at the event.

“We want people to feel safe and at ease,” Boulder police Chief Stephen Redfearn said during a news conference Thursday.

Denver Post reporters Katie Langford and Lauren Penington, and the Associated Press, contributed to this report.

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Volunteers at the American Friends Service Committee, a Quaker social justice organization, tallied at least eight people who were picked up by U.S. Immigration and Customs Enforcement officers at the immigration court inside the Byron G. Rogers Federal Building and U.S. Courthouse downtown.

The increased presence of immigration officers is a tactic linked to a larger strategy by President Donald Trump’s administration to help carry out its proposed mass deportations of immigrants who are in the country illegally.

Those detainees included a toddler and a 6-year-old child, said AFSC Denver program director Jennifer Piper. But she was not sure how many people were detained in total, she added, because her organization was initially unaware that ICE entered and exited the building through its garage in unmarked vehicles with tinted windows.

She spoke to a crowd of more than 30 people on Thursday afternoon outside the courthouse during a news conference called by immigrant rights advocates to provide updates on the latest ICE activity. As passerby on lunch break walked along the sidewalk, attendees stood holding pro-immigrant signs, including one that read: “ICE out of our court now!”

ICE didn’t respond Thursday afternoon to a request to confirm how many people had been detained at the courthouse since late last week and to provide information on why they were picked up.

The Denver Post first reported about ICE arrests at Denver Immigration Court on May 30, after a family of three was detained by federal officers. According to Emily Brock, the deputy managing attorney at the Rocky Mountain Immigrant Advocacy Network, the family’s removal case had been dismissed by the judge just before the three members’ detentions.

In Colorado, ICE officers are prohibited from making civil arrests in or around state courthouses. However, federal courts aren’t governed by that state law passed in 2020.

AFSC began its court watch on May 27, with volunteers stationed there throughout the day. Piper said they observed ICE agents in plainclothes on the third and eighth floors of the building. Three vans from the GEO Group — a private prison company in charge of the ICE facility in Aurora — were standing by.

Piper was unsure where those detainees were taken. She argued that none of the facilities in Colorado could accommodate migrant children.

“We don’t know where they are,” Piper said. “We don’t know where these migrant children are.”

She said her group also saw ICE officers attempt to detain six African immigrants, but a lawyer and organization volunteers were able to prevent their arrests. She noted that people represented by attorneys fared better during such enforcement actions because they had legal representation to advocate for them.

“All of the people that we witnessed being detained were people that don’t have a lawyer,” Piper said.

Immigration lawyer Hans Meyer said the extent of the agency’s enforcement activity remains unclear due to lack of communication.

But he confirmed that “ICE is conducting enforcement operations in state and local courthouses,” Meyer said at the news conference. “It is absolutely breaking state law in the process. There’s no question about that.”

He called for local elected officials, Colorado Attorney General Phil Weiser, civil rights organizations and law firms to fight ICE enforcement at courthouses until the agency is in compliance with state laws.

Weiser’s office declined to comment.

As the voices of advocates talking during the news conference echoed through speakers, people on the street exhibited a range of reactions. One man walking by the gathering yelled, “God bless y’all.”

Later, a passing woman shouted, “Go home!”

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The 14-year-old suspect was arrested on suspicion of first-degree murder, 10 counts of attempted first-degree murder and two counts of possessing a handgun as a juvenile, Aurora Police Department spokesperson Joe Moylan said.

Police are not publicly identifying the suspect because of his age.

The teenager is in custody at the El Paso County Jail but will be transferred to Arapahoe County Jail to face charges in Arapahoe Juvenile Court, according to a news release from the Aurora Police Department. He hadn’t yet been charged on Thursday.

Two 15-year-old girls and a 20-year-old woman were shot just after 12:30 a.m. Sunday outside of an Aurora Fire Rescue station at 12600 East Hoffman Blvd.

Firefighters were returning to the station from another call when they found a 15-year-old girl and a 20-year-old woman who had been shot, police said.

The teenager, who has not been publicly identified, died from her injuries at the hospital, police said.

She will be identified by the Arapahoe County Coroner’s Office.

The third victim was discovered several hours after the shooting.

Police found two guns when they searched the teenage suspect’s home that were turned in for ballistics testing to see if they match the crime scene evidence, according to the news release.

Anyone with information about the shooting or suspect is asked to call Metro Denver Crime Stoppers at 720-913-7867.

This is a developing story and will be updated. 

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The new complaint, brought by four new plaintiffs who live near the York Street pet food plant, alleges the odors released by the facility prevent them from renting out apartments, hosting parties or enjoying their backyards. The plaintiffs also say the scent causes nausea and headaches and can infiltrate their homes for days, according to the complaint.

“It’s like someone barfed in your backyard and then it baked in the sun and then you put a fan on the smell to keep it circulating,” plaintiffs Robert Boughner and Kelly MacNeil said in the lawsuit. (They were quoted as saying the same thing in the first lawsuit, though they weren’t plaintiffs in that case.)

The proposed class action would include anyone who lives within a one-mile radius of the plant, an area that includes an estimated 2,000 households.

The previous lawsuit, filed last year, was fully dismissed May 28 at the request of the remaining plaintiff. The original plaintiffs are not associated with the new lawsuit. Laura Sheets, an attorney with the Liddle Sheets law firm in Michigan who filed both lawsuits, said she could not discuss the previous case.

Efforts to reach representatives from Nestle Purina, which has its headquarters in St. Louis, were unsuccessful Thursday.

Purina first operated its plant in Denver in 1930 and for 42 years produced primarily livestock feed. The company transitioned the plant to a pet food factory in 1972, according to the Nestle website. The plant on York Street abuts Interstate 70 and is next to the Elyria-Swansea and Globeville neighborhoods.

The lawsuit mentions multiple air pollution violations committed by Purina.

Most recently, the Colorado Department of Public Health and Environment fined the company $7,000 for its odorous emissions that were more than double the regulatory threshold allowed by the state, the lawsuit said. The lawsuit also cited violations in 2021 and 2022.

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