Congressional candidate Lauren Boebert — who often espouses a pro-police, law-and-order message on the campaign trail — has been arrested and summonsed at least four times over the past decade, records show.
While the three arrests and one court-ordered summons were for petty crimes — and in one case all charges were dropped — Boebert’s record is unusually long for a congressional candidate. It has become a campaign issue as the Republican from Rifle competes in a highly anticipated contest against Diane Mitsch Bush in the 3rd Congressional District, which spans western and southern Colorado.
“I’m proud to be endorsed by my hometown sheriff, Lou Vallario, who knows the strength of my character. The summary here is a small fine, not charged, charge dismissed, charge dropped,” Boebert said Thursday, referring to the outcomes of her four cases. “In the meantime, Diane Mitsch Bush is intent on socializing our healthcare.”
Boebert’s first run-in with police was in the fall of 2010, after a neighbor, Michele Soet, alleged that Boebert, then 23, was harassing Soet and Soet’s husband. The alleged harassment occurred in the days after Soet called police because Boebert’s pit bulls were loose and threatening the life of her dogs.
Boebert was issued a ticket for dog code violations and a short time later texted Soet, “You have taken food out of my children’s mouths,” according to Soet. Boebert also “displayed her middle finger” to Soet’s husband as he drove through Rifle, according to a Garfield County sheriff’s deputy’s report.
“I want to press charges against these irresponsible people, as it may save a life down the road,” Soet wrote to the sheriff’s office, referring to the Boeberts’ loose pit bulls. Two days later, Boebert was handed a court summons by deputies but ultimately was never charged with harassment, according to court records.
Boebert was arrested twice in Mesa County in 2015. As first reported by Colorado Newsline, Boebert was detained on June 20, 2015, after a verbal altercation with police at Country Jam, a music festival near Grand Junction. Boebert, then 28 years old, allegedly shouted at people detained on suspicion of underage drinking, urging them to flee from police, which caused the young drinkers to become unruly.
While she was being handcuffed for disorderly conduct, Boebert tried to twist away from police, according to deputies’ reports. She allegedly shouted that her arrest was unconstitutional, that “she had friends at Fox News and that the arrest would be national news.” It did not become national news.
Boebert was released from custody and told to appear in court that August but missed her court date because, as she told a judge, she forgot what day of the week it was. “I am now aware today is Friday,” she wrote on Aug. 28, 2015, hours after she was supposed to be in court.
The judge, Craig Henderson, rescheduled for later that year. But Boebert again was a no-show at a Nov. 20 hearing. In a handwritten note to the judge, she did not include a reason for her absence.
“I apologize for irresponsibly wasting the courts time with this matter. I want nothing more than to be finished with this case, as it is not something I keep on the forefront of my thinking,” she wrote.
The court was less accommodating that time, records indicate. On Dec. 1, 2015, Boebert was arrested by sheriff’s deputies for failure to appear, according to Colorado Bureau of Investigation arrest records. The next month, the disorderly conduct charge was dismissed because there was “no reasonable likelihood of conviction should (the) case go to trial,” a prosecutor wrote at the time.
Failing to appear for court also landed Boebert in jail a year later. As first reported by the Colorado Times Recorder, Boebert was charged with careless driving and operating an unsafe vehicle after rolling her truck into a Garfield County ditch in the summer of 2016. They were minor traffic charges, but Boebert skipped an October court date.
She was booked into the Garfield County Jail on the morning of Feb. 13, 2017, for failure to appear and spent exactly 100 minutes as an inmate before being released on bond, according to sheriff’s office records. She later pleaded guilty to the unsafe vehicle charge, and the careless driving charge was dropped.
The man in charge of the jail then and now is Vallario, the Garfield County sheriff. Three years after Boebert was detained in the jail Vallario operates, he endorsed her campaign for Congress.
“I can tell you, I’ve worked with law enforcement members and two sheriffs who have had an arrest record in their past, from their younger days,” Vallario said by phone Wednesday. “Maybe they made some bad decisions but turned out to be very fine people and great leaders.”
Of Boebert’s arrest record, the sheriff said, “To me, that doesn’t represent somebody who is engaging in criminal behavior.”
“We don’t continue to punish people. That’s what our criminal justice system is all about. Somebody does whatever they have to do or pays a penalty or pays a price, then they should be starting at the starting gate again and be able to change their life or move forward,” Vallario said.
Boebert is the front-runner against Mitsch Bush, a Democrat, in the Republican-leaning 3rd District. Mitsch Bush has criticized Boebert’s petty crimes, calling her behavior at Country Jam “disrespectful antics” that showed contempt for police and the rule of law.
“Lauren Boebert’s hypocrisy is clear — she thinks the law doesn’t apply to her,” said Ashley Quenneville, Mitsch Bush’s campaign manager. “If Boebert can’t follow basic laws, how can Coloradans trust her to represent them with integrity as a member of Congress?”
