{"id":94538,"date":"2019-04-16T21:33:59","date_gmt":"2019-04-17T03:33:59","guid":{"rendered":"https:\/\/dh.durangoherald.com\/tj\/kansas-man-arrested-in-cortez-faces-new-sex-charge\/"},"modified":"2019-04-16T21:33:59","modified_gmt":"2019-04-17T03:33:59","slug":"kansas-man-arrested-in-cortez-faces-new-sex-charge","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/dh.durangoherald.com\/tj\/kansas-man-arrested-in-cortez-faces-new-sex-charge\/","title":{"rendered":"Kansas man arrested in Cortez faces new sex charge"},"content":{"rendered":"\n<p><figure class=\"wp-block-image naviga-inline-image\"><img decoding=\"async\" src=\"https:\/\/imengine.public.prod.dur.navigacloud.com\/?uuid=0f679e8b-9185-4f64-bc6b-8f92a26f2060&amp;function=cover&amp;type=preview&amp;source=false&amp;width=2000\" srcset=\"https:\/\/imengine.public.prod.dur.navigacloud.com\/?uuid=0f679e8b-9185-4f64-bc6b-8f92a26f2060&amp;function=cover&amp;type=preview&amp;source=false&amp;width=800 800w, https:\/\/imengine.public.prod.dur.navigacloud.com\/?uuid=0f679e8b-9185-4f64-bc6b-8f92a26f2060&amp;function=cover&amp;type=preview&amp;source=false&amp;width=1200 1200w, https:\/\/imengine.public.prod.dur.navigacloud.com\/?uuid=0f679e8b-9185-4f64-bc6b-8f92a26f2060&amp;function=cover&amp;type=preview&amp;source=false&amp;width=1800 1800w\" sizes=\"auto, (max-width: 480px) 100vw, (max-width: 1024px) 100vw, 2000px\" width=\"630\" height=\"510\" alt=\"Michael Scott Fitzgerald\" class=\"naviga-image\" loading=\"lazy\"><figcaption><span class=\"caption\">Michael Scott Fitzgerald<\/span><span class=\"credit\">du1-i-syn<\/span><\/figcaption><\/figure>\n<\/p><p>Michael Scott Fitzgerald, who was captured in a Cortez hotel on Jan. 24, was arraigned Monday in Topeka, Kansas, on a sixth sex assault charge.<\/p>\n<p>A district judge in Shawnee County District Court entered a not guilty plea on his behalf, according to <a href=\"https:\/\/www.wibw.com\/content\/news\/New-charge-for-man-accused-of-taking-14-year-old-to-Colorado-508604501.html\" target=\"_blank\" rel=\"noopener\">WIBW news<\/a>.<\/p>\n<p>A grand jury filed the felony sex charge March 28.<\/p>\n<p>According to WIBW, the act occurred on Jan. 24, the day he was arrested in a room at the Days Inn by Wyndham Cortez on Main Street.<\/p>\n<p>According to an affidavit filed by a Cortez police officer, three police officers found Fitzgerald, 47, in a hotel room with a 14-year-old girl from Kansas. He was jailed at Montezuma County Detention Center until he was extradited to Topeka.<\/p>\n<p>Fitzgerald was indicted on five felony charges including soliciting a child, contributing to a child\u2019s misconduct (sheltering a runaway) and indecent liberties with a child.<\/p>\n<p>After Cortez police officers detained Fitzgerald, the girl was evaluated at Southwest Memorial Hospital and placed in custody of Montezuma County Social Services. Social workers made arrangements to return the girl to Kansas.<\/p>\n<p>The Cortez affidavit states Topeka Police Detective Scott Dickey located Fitzgerald\u2019s black Dodge pickup using Mopar vehicle tracking and informed Cortez police of Fitzgerald\u2019s location.<\/p>\n<p>When the three Cortez police officers knocked on the hotel room door, Fitzgerald opened the door wearing underwear and a T-shirt, the police affidavit said. Some details in the affidavit have been redacted, but in court on Friday, Assistant District Attorney Matthew Margeson said the girl was wearing just her underwear when police arrived.<\/p>\n<p>He remains in custody in Shawnee County Jail in lieu of a $250,000 bond, WIBW reported, and is scheduled to appear in court on May 20.<\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"<p>found suspect with help from Topeka police<\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":1,"featured_media":94539,"comment_status":"open","ping_status":"open","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"_acf_changed":false,"footnotes":""},"categories":[5736,5735],"tags":[21],"naviga_topic":[],"class_list":["post-94538","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","has-post-thumbnail","hentry","category-local-news","category-news","tag-cortez"],"acf":[],"author_name":"dh_admin","_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/dh.durangoherald.com\/tj\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/94538","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=94538"}],"version-history":[{"count":0,"href":"https:\/\/dh.durangoherald.com\/tj\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/94538\/revisions"}],"wp:featuredmedia":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/dh.durangoherald.com\/tj\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media\/94539"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/dh.durangoherald.com\/tj\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=94538"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/dh.durangoherald.com\/tj\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=94538"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/dh.durangoherald.com\/tj\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=94538"},{"taxonomy":"naviga_topic","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/dh.durangoherald.com\/tj\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/naviga_topic?post=94538"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}