October 01, 2012 04:28 AM UTC

Tough Break For Rick Enstrom, The "Candy Man"

• 12 Comments
• by: Colorado Pols

Lynn Bartels of the Denver paper reports today on a serious development for another GOP Colorado House candidate, Rick Enstrom, after a mailer hit House District 23 mailboxes on Friday claiming Enstrom was “arrested for selling cocaine paraphernalia at his business.”

To briefly circle back, some of you may recall Rick Enstrom from his testimony in 2010 as a business owner against the repeal of certain business-facing tax credits, which Enstrom claimed could seriously hurt his business–only to confess later that he knew all along they would not, and of course they did not. That incident has left Enstrom with a bit of a credibility deficit.

Said credibility deficit becomes rather glaring when Enstrom threatens to sue, claiming that he was never arrested for the sale of drug paraphernalia, but the public record contains this:

That would be the Grand Junction Police Department report on Enstrom’s arrest.

“For sale of drug paraphernalia.”

Whatever becomes of this, the threats of “libel lawsuits” didn’t even survive the first news story.

With that established, there are a few issues to clear up. Enstrom is circulating a letter from an assistant Mesa County DA at the time, William Kain, claiming that Enstrom was never arrested. But Bartels notes the report you can plainly read above, and explains he was arrested after he refused to sign the summons, and was “released at the scene.” Although Kain was the prosecutor who signed the documents dismissing the case after Enstrom agreed to stop selling drug paraphernalia, news reports in the Grand Junction Sentinel at the time refer to another prosecutor, Peggy Ball, who was reportedly incensed by the decision to rule the evidence seized from Enstrom’s business inadmissible, and even threatened an appeal to the state Supreme Court:

Bottom line: this story is what it is. Back in the 1980s, according to unambiguous language in a police report, Rick Enstrom was arrested for selling drug paraphernalia. The fact is, many people will not regard running a head shop as a serious offense, and might even defend Enstrom’s right to sell legal products that might be used illegally outside his control. A quick drive down Federal Boulevard in Denver reveals that these products are widely and legally sold. The morality of selling immoral products in a free market is a germane but very broad topic.

One thing Enstrom can’t claim, however, is that it didn’t happen. If it’s politically problematic for a Republican candidate for the legislature to have been arrested in the 1980s for selling drug paraphernalia, too bad. The record doesn’t lie, no matter how you parse the words.

After the jump, two more supporting documents we were forwarded: the original Grand Junction Sentinel story detailing the citation for selling drug paraphernalia including “brown bottles and spoons [police] say are used for consuming cocaine,” as well as the settlement dismissing the case, where Enstrom personally acknowledges that “the sale of drug paraphernalia is adverse to the best interests of the community,” and agrees to stop doing it.

Once again, we’ll update when Frank McNulty explains what happened to his vetting process.