COLORADO SPRINGS, Colo. - Gov. John Hickenlooper on Thursday announced an audit to ensure the state’s prisoners are serving their correct sentences, two weeks after a parolee who was mistakenly released four years early was identified as a suspect in the killing of Colorado’s prisons chief.
The announcement came as authorities said they were looking for two other members of Evan Ebel’s white supremacist prison gang. Authorities said the two men were not suspects but “persons of interest” in Tom Clements’ death.
Investigators are trying to determine whether Clements’ killing was an isolated attack or done at the direction of top members of the gang, the 211 Crew.
On that backdrop, state officials announced the audit and a review of state parole procedures by the National Institute of Corrections. Ebel had slipped his ankle bracelet five days before the Clements killing, but authorities did not issue a warrant for his arrest on parole violations until the next day.
Police believe that after he ditched his ankle bracelet, Ebel also was involved in the slaying of a pizza deliveryman in Denver. Ebel died after a March 21 shootout withTexas authorities.
At a news conference Thursday, the head of Colorado’s parole system, Tim Hand, said his officers struggle to keep up with their caseloads.
“We’re releasing approximately 800 parolees out of our prison system every month. Every month,” Hand said. “So if we had the resources to have more contact and interactions with the populations, I think we would have better results.”
Ebel was sentenced to a combined eight years in prison for a series of convictions for assault and menacing in 2005. He was convicted of assaulting a prison guard in 2008, but a clerical error led his new four-year term to be recorded as running simultaneously with his other sentences, rather than starting when they finished. As a result, he was released Jan. 28- four years early.
“The Department of Corrections will prioritize the review of cases with the greatest level of risk, going back 10 years, and reviewing the required consecutive sentencing,” Hickenlooper said in a statement. “The Department of Corrections will work with the attorney general’s office on any issues that may need further action.”
Meanwhile, the announcement Wednesday night that authorities are looking for two other 211 gang memberswas the first official indication of a possible tie to the gang.
James Lohr, 47, and Thomas Guolee, 31, aren’t being called suspects in Clements’ killing, but are considered persons of interest. Their names surfaced during the investigation, El Paso County sheriff ’s deputy Lt. Jeff Kramer said. He wouldn’t elaborate.
Authorities say the two Colorado Springs men are members of the 211 gang and have been associated with Ebel in the past.
Both are wanted on warrants unrelated to Clements’ death, and authorities believe they are armed and dangerous.
Ebel is the only suspect that investigators have named in Clements’ killing, but they haven’t given a motive. They have said they’re looking into his connection to the gang he joined while in prison, and whether that was connected to the attack.
“Investigators are looking at a lot of different possibilities. We are not stepping out and saying it’s a hit or it’s not a hit. We’re looking at all possible motives,” Kramer said Wednesday.
Investigators have said the gun Ebel used in the Texas shootout also was used to kill Clements when the prisons chief answered the front door of his Monument home.
Sheriff’s investigators saidthey don’t know the whereabouts of Lohr and Guolee or if they are together, but it’s possible one or both of them could be headed to Nevada or Texas, Kramer said.
Guolee is a parolee who served time for intimidating a witness and giving a pawnbroker false information, among other charges, court records show. State corrections records show he served time for offenses in El Paso County before being paroled in southeastern Colorado.
His father, Phil Guolee ofWisconsin told The Denver Post that his son had been in prison since he was 18, is bipolar and wasn’t able to have his medication in prison.
“He couldn’t get any help; he couldn’t get a good lawyer, couldn’t get anything for him in Colorado,” he said.
Lohr was being sought on warrants out of Las Animas County for a bail violation and a violation of a protection order, according to court records.
He was arrested in Trinidad on Dec. 1, 2012, while hanging out with some friends at a tattoo shop because police said he was drinking in violation of the protection order. The name of the person being protected by the order was blacked out in the documents. The court issued a warrant for his arrest after he failed to appear in that case Feb. 20.
Information for this article was contributed by P. Solomon Banda and Nicholas Riccardi of The Associated Press.
Front Section, Pages 4 on 04/05/2013