{"id":57515,"date":"2013-09-09T23:45:37","date_gmt":"2013-09-10T05:45:37","guid":{"rendered":"https:\/\/dh.durangoherald.com\/tj\/judge-denies-gag-order-for-now\/"},"modified":"2026-03-29T16:02:25","modified_gmt":"2026-03-29T16:02:25","slug":"judge-denies-gag-order-for-now","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/dh.durangoherald.com\/tj\/judge-denies-gag-order-for-now\/","title":{"rendered":"Judge denies gag order, for now"},"content":{"rendered":"
\"Cronk\"
Cronk<\/span>du1-i-syn<\/span><\/figcaption><\/figure>\n

Cronk\u2019s court-appointed attorney Justin Bogan filed a gag order request against both the district attorney\u2019s office and the Montezuma County Sheriff\u2019s Office. He told District Court Judge Todd Plewe that Sheriff Dennis Spruell had made multiple public statements that jeopardize his client\u2019s right to due process.<\/p>\n

\u201cThe statements from the sheriff greatly erode Mr. Cronk\u2019s right to a fair trial by a jury of his peers,\u201d Bogan said. \u201cWe have grave concerns if he can even get a fair trial in this jurisdiction.\u201d<\/p>\n

In addition to statements made to the media, Bogan asserted that most of Sheriff Spruell\u2019s comments have been made on his agency Facebook page. However, Bogan didn\u2019t provide any evidence to corroborate his allegations.<\/p>\n

\u201cI haven\u2019t looked at the Facebook page,\u201d Bogan admitted during Thursday afternoon\u2019s 15-minute proceeding.<\/p>\n

\u201cIsn\u2019t that an important part for the court\u2019s determination, to find out what\u2019s on the Facebook page?\u201d Judge Plewe asked. \u201cNothing\u2019s been presented to me as to what those statements might be.\u201d<\/p>\n

District Attorney Will Furse said that neither his agency nor the sheriff\u2019s department have crossed the lines of professional or ethical conduct. He said statements included in the Cortez Journal were not direct quotes, but instead mere \u201cjournalistic summaries.\u201d<\/p>\n

\u201cThe defense has not identified anything that is prejudicial,\u201d Furse said. \u201cWe don\u2019t believe a gag order is necessary.\u201d<\/p>\n

Bogan said he wasn\u2019t accusing anyone of professional misconduct in the case, but he did want the court to define and adopt rules and guidelines as set out by the American Bar Association on how litigants interact with the press.<\/p>\n

\u201cI can\u2019t find anything the [district attorney] is doing publicly as it relates to this case,\u201d said Judge Plewe in denying the gag order against prosecutors.<\/p>\n

As far as the gag order against the sheriff\u2019s office, Judge Plewe granted the defense five days to supplement its motion.<\/p>\n

\u201cRight now, what\u2019s been presented to me isn\u2019t sufficient to issue a gag order,\u201d he said.<\/p>\n

A Montezuma County grand jury indicted Cronk on 17 counts of felony embezzlement charges last month. The alleged crimes stem from his abuse of both a Montezuma County Sheriff\u2019s Office credit card and checking account along with a sheriff\u2019s office line of credit to pay for personal gunsmithing services, vehicle maintenance, holsters, generators, gun components, ammunition and firearms over a 26-month span starting in February 2011. Records show Cronk left taxpayers holding a $7,415.36 bill for his personal items.<\/p>\n

Cronk was tapped as undersheriff in January 2011. He was forced to resign the post in June due to the public corruption allegations.<\/p>\n

Currently free on a $1,500 bond, Cronk\u2019s next scheduled court appearance is Sept. 19, at 2:30 p.m. for a disposition hearing.<\/p>\n

tbaker@cortezjournal.com<\/a><\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"

Cronkdu1-i-syn Cronk\u2019s court-appointed attorney Justin Bogan filed a gag order request against both the district attorney\u2019s office and the Montezuma County Sheriff\u2019s Office. He told District Court Judge Todd Plewe that Sheriff Dennis Spruell had made multiple public statements that jeopardize his client\u2019s right to due process. \u201cThe statements from the sheriff greatly erode Mr. […]<\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":1,"featured_media":57516,"comment_status":"open","ping_status":"open","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"_acf_changed":false,"footnotes":""},"categories":[],"tags":[75,168,237,869],"naviga_topic":[],"class_list":["post-57515","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","has-post-thumbnail","hentry","tag-court-preliminary","tag-crime","tag-montezuma-county-government","tag-public-officials"],"acf":[],"author_name":"dh_admin","_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/dh.durangoherald.com\/tj\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/57515","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=57515"}],"version-history":[{"count":2,"href":"https:\/\/dh.durangoherald.com\/tj\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/57515\/revisions"}],"predecessor-version":[{"id":62816,"href":"https:\/\/dh.durangoherald.com\/tj\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/57515\/revisions\/62816"}],"wp:featuredmedia":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/dh.durangoherald.com\/tj\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media\/57516"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/dh.durangoherald.com\/tj\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=57515"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/dh.durangoherald.com\/tj\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=57515"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/dh.durangoherald.com\/tj\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=57515"},{"taxonomy":"naviga_topic","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/dh.durangoherald.com\/tj\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/naviga_topic?post=57515"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}