Logan Griffith, 20, pleaded guilty to second-degree assault on a peace officer and aggravated robbery, a Class 3 felony.<\/p>\n
Griffith, who was 19 at the time of the robbery, told 6th Judicial Judge Jeffrey Wilson that he was \u201cincredibly sorry\u201d for the harm he caused by robbing Rocky Mountain High on Jan. 31 in Durango with his father, Joe Griffith. His father is set to enter a plea July 30.<\/p>\n
\u201cI\u2019m not shying away from my actions,\u201d he said. \u201cI wish that my victims will heal from the crime I\u2019ve caused.\u201d<\/p>\n
Assistant District Attorney Reid Stewart said the case had been \u201cdifficult for the prosecution,\u201d as armed robbery is a \u201cserious and egregious crime.\u201d<\/p>\n
But, he said, Stewart became convinced that the \u201cstrange dynamic between father and son\u201d meant that \u201ceven though it was the son holding the gun, I feel that the father is more culpable for the crime.\u201d<\/p>\n
Authorities say Joe Griffith posed as a customer at the dispensary, while Logan, armed with a handgun and wearing a hoodie and mask, tied up his father and two clerks before leaving with $3,000 in cash and a substantial amount of marijuana.<\/p>\n
If Logan Griffith fails to complete his sentence in the YOS program, he\u2019ll serve 15 years in the Department of Corrections.<\/p>\n
Judge Wilson, who considered rejecting the plea agreement outright at the last sentencing hearing, told Griffith his behavior had been \u201cextremely dangerous. You could have easily shot somebody.\u201d<\/p>\n
He said the fact that Durango Police Department\u2019s Cpl. Nicholas Stasi and Officer Kathleen O\u2019Toole \u2013 the officers who Griffith assaulted during the arrest \u2013 endorsed Griffith being sentenced to YOS \u201ccarries a lot of weight with me.\u201d<\/p>\n
Wilson told Logan Griffith he would have felonies on his record for \u201cthe rest of your life. Nothing can be done about that at this point.\u201d<\/p>\n
Griffith\u2019s sister, Cybelle, 16, urged Wilson to be lenient \u2013 saying they were close growing up, and Logan erred only because of the influence of their \u201chorrible\u201d father, who often accused Logan of being a \u201cmama\u2019s boy.\u201d<\/p>\n
His mother, Bobbie Kay Griffith, tearfully described her son as a dutiful former Boy Scout who loved science and baseball and dreamed of being in the military.<\/p>\n
\u201cMy son regrets the decision that he made committing this crime. He knows right from wrong. I home-schooled him,\u201d she said.<\/p>\n
\u201cHe felt obligated to his father \u2013 love, honor, trust, obedience \u2013 all the qualities that I instilled into Logan became dangerous qualities that put him in peril.\u201d<\/p>\n
Public defender John Moran said Logan Griffith took responsibility for his actions, and he acknowledged that his father\u2019s influence landed him \u201cin a courtroom facing felonies.\u201d<\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"
Griffith, 20, pleaded guilty to second-degree assault on a peace officer and aggravated robbery, a Class 3 felony. Griffith, who was 19 at the time of the robbery, told 6th Judicial Judge Jeffrey Wilson that he was \u201cincredibly sorry\u201d for the harm he caused by robbing Rocky Mountain High on Jan. 31 in Durango […]<\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":1,"featured_media":110755,"comment_status":"open","ping_status":"open","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"_acf_changed":false,"footnotes":""},"categories":[5736,5735],"tags":[155,132],"naviga_topic":[],"class_list":["post-110754","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","has-post-thumbnail","hentry","category-local-news","category-news","tag-education","tag-fort-lewis-college"],"acf":[],"author_name":"dh_admin","_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/dh.durangoherald.com\/tj\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/110754","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/dh.durangoherald.com\/tj\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/dh.durangoherald.com\/tj\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/dh.durangoherald.com\/tj\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/1"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/dh.durangoherald.com\/tj\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=110754"}],"version-history":[{"count":0,"href":"https:\/\/dh.durangoherald.com\/tj\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/110754\/revisions"}],"wp:featuredmedia":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/dh.durangoherald.com\/tj\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media\/110755"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/dh.durangoherald.com\/tj\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=110754"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/dh.durangoherald.com\/tj\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=110754"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/dh.durangoherald.com\/tj\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=110754"},{"taxonomy":"naviga_topic","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/dh.durangoherald.com\/tj\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/naviga_topic?post=110754"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}