{"id":39299,"date":"2022-07-22T18:59:53","date_gmt":"2022-07-23T00:59:53","guid":{"rendered":"https:\/\/dh.durangoherald.com\/tj\/colorado-man-pleads-guilty-to-casting-missing-wifes-ballot\/"},"modified":"2022-07-23T00:59:53","modified_gmt":"2022-07-23T00:59:53","slug":"colorado-man-pleads-guilty-to-casting-missing-wifes-ballot","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/dh.durangoherald.com\/tj\/colorado-man-pleads-guilty-to-casting-missing-wifes-ballot\/","title":{"rendered":"Colorado man pleads guilty to casting missing wife\u2019s ballot"},"content":{"rendered":"

\"Barry
Barry Morphew was arrested in connection with the disappearance of his wife, Suzanne Morphew, as the result of an ongoing investigation that has so far involved more than 135 searches across Colorado and the interviews of over 400 people in multiple states, Chaffee County Sheriff John Spezze said, Wednesday. (Chaffee County Sheriff\u2019s Office via AP)<\/span><\/figcaption><\/figure>\n

DENVER \u2013 A Colorado man who had been charged in the presumed death of his missing wife has pleaded guilty to forgery for casting her 2020 election ballot for then-President Donald Trump.<\/p>\n

Barry Morphew pleaded guilty Thursday and was fined and assessed court costs of $600, The Denver Post<\/em> reported<\/a>. He avoids jail time as part of a plea agreement.<\/p>\n

Suzanne Morphew was reported missing on Mother\u2019s Day in 2020 after she did not return from a bike ride near her home in the Salida area in southern Colorado. Barry Morphew, who pleaded for help finding his wife, was arrested and charged with first-degree murder and other crimes in 2021, but prosecutors dropped the charges in April.<\/p>\n

That decision came after the judge\u2019s move to bar prosecutors from presenting most of their key witnesses during Morphew\u2019s scheduled trial because they repeatedly failed to follow rules for turning over evidence in his favor. The evidence included DNA from an unknown male linked to sexual assault cases in other states, which was found in Suzanne Morphew\u2019s SUV and raised the possibility of another suspect being involved.<\/p>\n

Suzanne Morphew\u2019s body has not been found.<\/p>\n

In the voter fraud case, investigators said Barry Morphew filled out his missing wife\u2019s ballot because he thought Trump could use the extra vote. Trump lost Colorado<\/a> to President Joe Biden by 14 percentage points.<\/p>\n

\u201cJust because I wanted Trump to win. I just thought, give him another vote. I figured all these other guys are cheating,\u201d he told an FBI agent<\/a> who confronted him about the ballot in April 2021, according to court documents.<\/p>\n

Trump has made repeated claims about fraud and \u201crigged\u201d election results, but experts say there has been no evidence found<\/a> of widespread fraud that would have changed the election\u2019s outcome.<\/p>\n

Morphew also told the agent he didn\u2019t know it was illegal to fill out a ballot on behalf of a spouse.<\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"

Morphew was arrested in connection with the disappearance of his wife, Suzanne Morphew, as the result of an ongoing investigation that has so far involved more than 135 searches across Colorado and the interviews of over 400 people in multiple states, Chaffee County Sheriff John Spezze said, Wednesday. (Chaffee County Sheriff\u2019s Office via AP) […]<\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":1,"featured_media":39300,"comment_status":"open","ping_status":"open","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"_acf_changed":false,"footnotes":""},"categories":[],"tags":[120,299],"naviga_topic":[],"class_list":["post-39299","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","has-post-thumbnail","hentry","tag-colorado","tag-national-elections"],"acf":[],"author_name":"dh_admin","_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/dh.durangoherald.com\/tj\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/39299","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=39299"}],"version-history":[{"count":0,"href":"https:\/\/dh.durangoherald.com\/tj\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/39299\/revisions"}],"wp:featuredmedia":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/dh.durangoherald.com\/tj\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media\/39300"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/dh.durangoherald.com\/tj\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=39299"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/dh.durangoherald.com\/tj\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=39299"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/dh.durangoherald.com\/tj\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=39299"},{"taxonomy":"naviga_topic","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/dh.durangoherald.com\/tj\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/naviga_topic?post=39299"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}