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Basalt man convicted of making an attempt to sexually assault girl in downtown Aspen restaurant lavatory may spend the remainder of his life behind bars below Sentencing Offenders Act state intercourse.
Pitkin County District Decide Chris Seldin on Tuesday handed down a four-year minimal sentence to the Division of Corrections on Robert Marlow, whose public defender tried to maintain him out of jail arguing he deserved extra probation.
Seldin handed down his sentence below the provisions of the Lifetime Supervision of Intercourse Offenders Act, or SOLSA, which requires lifelong supervision for many Class 2, 3 and 4 intercourse crime convictions.
In April, a Pitkin County jury found Marlow guilty of tried sexual assault, a Class 4 felony, and located he used ‘pressure of violence’ when he tried to sexually assault a then 23-year-old girl at Aspen Public Home round 1 a.m., July 7, 2021. He was additionally convicted of misdemeanors for illegal confinement and indecent assault.
Marlow, 41 and a former bouncer, has maintained his innocence and his public defender Scott Troxell has urged they are going to attraction the conviction.
Below the legislation, Seldin may both sentence Marlow to a probationary interval of a minimal of 10 years to a most of life, or to a jail time period of a minimal of two years and a most of life.
Seldin stated he could not discover Marlow eligible for probation, nor was he satisfied by Troxell’s argument that SULSA is unconstitutional. Troxell filed motions making the identical argument. These motions are sealed, a court docket clerk stated.
“The appliance of SULSA to the crime at situation right here is acceptable,” Seldin stated.
Even so, Troxell stated the punishment didn’t match the crime Marlow stated he didn’t keep in mind committing. Troxell additionally stated that Marlow, by saying he had no recollection of the incident, harm his probabilities of being paroled.
“I perceive and respect the jury’s resolution on the fees, however we’re speaking about conduct – even within the mild most favorable to the prosecution, if you’ll – which to me shocks the conscience that we’re speaking about sending M Marlow in jail for presumably the remainder of his life,” Troxell defined. “If the prosecution does not consider that is a chance below the Lifetime Supervision Act, I would really like them to let or not it’s identified, as a result of whereas some folks get out of jail, many do not. … and now the Division of Corrections will determine whether or not Mr. Marlow is ever in a position to get out of jail, if that’s the sentence of the court docket.
Marlow appeared in particular person on the listening to held in Pitkin County District Courtroom, which reopened this week after being closed since March for a significant renovation mission. He refused to talk when Seldin supplied him the possibility. The sufferer listened to the listening to nearly and likewise refused to talk.
Marlow testified at trial that he had used alcohol and cocaine that night time and couldn’t keep in mind what occurred within the lavatory apart from the lady’s screams. He stated, nevertheless, he remembered a lot of the different particulars of the night, together with arriving on the Aspen Public Home and sitting down at a desk exterior the boys’s and girls’s restrooms.
The jury couldn’t contemplate Marlow’s intoxication when deliberating their verdict, Troxell stated.
“It’s considerably undisputed that Mr. Marlow was merely inebriated,” he stated. “He indicated this to legislation enforcement on the time he was contacted by them. All of the witnesses indicated that he was inebriated, very drunk, insane.
The sufferer, who was 23 on the time of the assault, was visiting Aspen and went out on the night time of July 6, 2021, together with a household pal. At round 1 a.m. on July 7, she went to the ladies’s lavatory on the Public Home the place she noticed Marlow standing along with his pants unbuttoned, the sufferer testified.
She then turned away to the boys’s room, the place shortly after Marlow, who was visibly drunk, burst in and backed her up towards a wall, stopped her from leaving and began knocking down his pants and his boxers, testified the sufferer.
“I hope in your personal thoughts you have absorbed the trauma this incident has induced the sufferer,” stated Seldin, who additionally famous the previous bouncer’s tall stature. “You heard her scream on the videotape. Anybody confronted with these circumstances would recoil. That is completely unacceptable conduct, horrible and scary conduct.
The girl stated that after Marlow informed her, “You are not going wherever”, she screamed and punched and kicked him and was in a position to escape from the toilet. She additionally testified that she believed she would have been raped if she had not run away.
“It is creepy, scary conduct,” Seldin continued. “Mr Marlow naturally doesn’t admit that he dedicated the act. He went to trial and claimed his innocence, and he’ll proceed to say his innocence, in order that he can pursue his attraction rights. However objectively, it is scary, scary conduct.
Throughout the sentencing listening to, prosecutor Don Nottingham performed Troxell’s phrases towards Marlow.
“On this case, does it shock the conscience that an individual who assaults a stranger in a restaurant lavatory is making an attempt to sexually assault her in a semi-public, albeit comparatively secure, place inside a semi-public space? Does it shock the conscience that the particular person will probably be topic to lifelong surveillance? »
Nottingham, who referred to as for at least 4 years in jail for Marlow, added: “It is only a scary act. This isn’t a scenario the place an individual acquired blended indicators or knew the particular person and roughly understood what was being stated to them. It was an assault on a younger girl in a restaurant lavatory. I definitely do not declare to talk for anybody else, however I feel it is honest to say that this has received to be some folks’s worst nightmare – being sexually attacked when all you are doing is to exit on a social event with a pal.”
Marlow has three driving below the affect convictions and likewise two nonviolent felony convictions in Texas. Seldin additionally decided that Marlow was not a violent intercourse offender and urged him to handle his historical past of substance use. Marlow will obtain credit score for 453 days served within the Pitkin County Jail since his arrest.
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