I attended the 1-26-22 motion hearing regarding the charges against Principal Trujillo. The hearing was held by Judge Bull. Present were Riley Selleck, Trujillo’s attorney, Wendy Hickey for the prosecution, Sarai Trujillo, and Talmage Trujillo.
The are four charges against Trujillo.
Harboring a minor
Obstructing the police
Obstructing a government operation
Official misconduct.
Selleck moved that the prosecution produce a “bill of particulars” for each charge. That is, I believe, specific examples how Trujillo broke the law. The judge rejected the motion except for charge 4, official misconduct. The prosecution was asked to produce the bill of particulars within 21 days.
The prosecution conceded that, while they had filed for two counts of harboring a minor, one at the school and one at a hotel that evening, they had no proof regarding the incident at the hotel. (Lynda Stanley had filed the original charges.)
The defense revealed that there had been previous incidents at the school. Incidents involving students in crisis. That these incidents led up to the events on September 23rd. The earlier incidents involving the police and the school did not have positive outcomes. One prior incident involved officer Meseke who was present on September 23rd.
Judge Bull asked the attorneys to keep all information regarding school security procedures confidential. She also asked the prosecution to produce all police body cam footage within 30 days.
Class 6 felonies in Colorado are the least serious category of felony offenses. Sentencing ranges from one year to 18 months in prison, and fines from $1,000.00 to $100,000.00. And extraordinary risk class 6 felony crimes carry a maximum prison term of two years. Convictions can typically be sealed three years after the case ends.
2-18-22 - Trujillo’s motion hearing today. Defense wanted all police reports from officers Meseke and Peale while they were SRO’s. Defense eventually dropped the request for reports from Peale and focused on Meseke. Prosecution said there were over a 100 SRO reports over the years. Unclear what bearing they hand on the case. Defense said he had names of students involved Meseke in incidents similar to September 23rd.
Court decided that the defense would hand over the names of the students and only those reports would be opened. Court would review the reports to see if they had bearing if the reports had been expunged.
Court decided that the bill of particulars that the prosecution provided was sufficient for the charge of official misconduct.
Trujillo pleaded not guilty to the misdemeanor charges and requested a jury trial. The trial is expected to last 3 days and starts on July 28th at 8:30am.
There will be a pre-trial readiness conference on June 28th at 3pm.
On April 20th there will be a motion hearing on the felony charge at 2:30pm.
Hoping the School Board realizes that Trujillo is an enormous liability - too many bad decisions made in an extremely short period of time during this school year alone. If he is found guilty, it will be cleaner for the school district to just dismiss him after his court appearances. Is the School Board willing to be responsible for his behavior?
BTW, what are his qualifications…Education and work background…anyone know?
