Nearly all the copies of a small-town Colorado newspaper were stolen from newspaper racks on the same day the Ouray County Plaindealer published a story about charges being filed over rapes alleged to have occurred at an underage drinking party at the police chief’s house while the chief was asleep, the owner and publisher said Friday.

Mike Wiggins vowed to get to the bottom of it, posting Thursday on X, formerly Twitter: “If you hoped to silence or intimidate us, you failed miserably. We’ll find out who did this. And another press run is imminent.”

The newspaper posted the story on social media and removed its website paywall so people could read about the felony sexual assault charges filed against three men, including a relative of the police chief, for actions that allegedly occurred at a May 2023 party in Ouray where drugs and alcohol were used, according to court records. The suspects were ages 17, 18 and 19 at the time, and the person who reported the rapes was 17, records said.

87 points
*

this is tooo tasty. did someone not realize what happens when you try and hide ‘stories’. and in Print?!?! wtf??

streeeiisaaand where are you

permalink
report
reply
80 points

Gosh it sure would be a shame if everyone here commented and liked this post. That would be just awful for the alleged rapist.

permalink
report
reply
10 points

Ah oops, oh no… Oh well. Guess I just stumbled over the ole’ type and submit key. Darn.

permalink
report
parent
reply
1 point
*

And my axe

permalink
report
parent
reply
76 points

Shout out to Plaindealer. The move to remove the pay wall so EVERYONE can read this story online. That’s a nice “Fuck you” to the thieves. Haha.

permalink
report
reply
58 points

So the victim woke up, couldn’t find her clothes and left with police chiefs sweatshirt in mid May. Goes to hospital and they call Sheriff obviously, but he can’t investigate because he hired the police chief and was former chief and his investigator also had worked for the police chief. So obviously they have to involve CBI (state investigator)

May gang rape… Then “CBI agents interviewed suspects in July”… Then… “July 20, agents used a search warrant to seize evidence from the police chief’s house”… To “were all arrested on warrants for suspected felony sexual assault in December. All have posted bail and been released from jail”

Oh and the police chief knew for month about the investigation. CBI took two months to even question suspects or collect evidence… Another five months to charge anyone.

They left freaking bite marks on the girl.

The DNA tests on samples collected during the hospital sexual assault exam matched Trujillo – in a vaginal sample – and Dieffenderffer – from a bite mark.

permalink
report
reply
1 point
Deleted by creator
permalink
report
parent
reply
40 points

They stole print newspapers to hide a story? Were the perpetrators spotted wearing onions on their belts and chanting 23 skidoo?

permalink
report
reply
18 points
*

No they found the guy who stole the newspapers

admitted he took the newspapers because of the front page story

Plaindealer is not disclosing Choate’s relationship to the sexual assault case.

The theft was not connected in any way to the three defendants in the case, their families or the Ouray Police Department.

I’m not a Sherlock, but if you read those two together, sounds like the victim’s (who was never named) relative (father?) stole the newspapers?

Otherwise they wouldn’t have the sentence about not disclosing

permalink
report
parent
reply
7 points

There’s other reasons they may not disclose it. If they’re a minor they probably wouldn’t, for example. The minor in this case was only disclosed because the severity of the crime. They could also just not want to disclose it because they just don’t want to or just haven’t gotten to it yet.

permalink
report
parent
reply
11 points

It was the style at the time!

permalink
report
parent
reply

News

!news@lemmy.world

Create post

Welcome to the News community!

Rules:

1. Be civil

Attack the argument, not the person. No racism/sexism/bigotry. Good faith argumentation only. This includes accusing another user of being a bot or paid actor. Trolling is uncivil and is grounds for removal and/or a community ban. Do not respond to rule-breaking content; report it and move on.


2. All posts should contain a source (url) that is as reliable and unbiased as possible and must only contain one link.

Obvious right or left wing sources will be removed at the mods discretion. We have an actively updated blocklist, which you can see here: https://lemmy.world/post/2246130 if you feel like any website is missing, contact the mods. Supporting links can be added in comments or posted seperately but not to the post body.


3. No bots, spam or self-promotion.

Only approved bots, which follow the guidelines for bots set by the instance, are allowed.


4. Post titles should be the same as the article used as source.

Posts which titles don’t match the source won’t be removed, but the autoMod will notify you, and if your title misrepresents the original article, the post will be deleted. If the site changed their headline, the bot might still contact you, just ignore it, we won’t delete your post.


5. Only recent news is allowed.

Posts must be news from the most recent 30 days.


6. All posts must be news articles.

No opinion pieces, Listicles, editorials or celebrity gossip is allowed. All posts will be judged on a case-by-case basis.


7. No duplicate posts.

If a source you used was already posted by someone else, the autoMod will leave a message. Please remove your post if the autoMod is correct. If the post that matches your post is very old, we refer you to rule 5.


8. Misinformation is prohibited.

Misinformation / propaganda is strictly prohibited. Any comment or post containing or linking to misinformation will be removed. If you feel that your post has been removed in error, credible sources must be provided.


9. No link shorteners.

The auto mod will contact you if a link shortener is detected, please delete your post if they are right.


10. Don't copy entire article in your post body

For copyright reasons, you are not allowed to copy an entire article into your post body. This is an instance wide rule, that is strictly enforced in this community.

Community stats

  • 14K

    Monthly active users

  • 20K

    Posts

  • 522K

    Comments