The Crested Butte News Serving the Gunnison Valley since 1999
Plea deal gave inmate pass on crimes allegedly committed at jail in 2008
Dressed in a clean white suit, Joseph Stromayer strolled into court on Tuesday, October 19 accompanied by two guards for what his attorney hoped would be the resolution to the dozen charges hanging over the inmate’s head. By the time he left, Stromayer was destined for a three-year stint in an orange suit.
The plea deal Stromayer’s attorney Gary Fielder struck would send Stromayer to a two-year prison term in a state prison for a class 5 felony charge of theft by receiving, along with a one-year term for violating the conditions of bail bond, a class 6 felony committed in December 2009.
But neither of the guilty pleas was for the charges of conspiracy to commit perjury, intimidation of a witness or any of the other felony charges that were allegedly committed by Stromayer at the Gunnison County Jail late 2008.
According to the affidavit in the case involving theft, Stromayer and his wife, Tawnya Sponable-Stromayer, were arrested in Lakewood on failure to appear warrants that stemmed from their involvement in indiscretions at the Gunnison County Jail, where Joseph Stromayer was an inmate and Tawnya Sponable-Stromayer was an employee.
When they were searched after the arrest, Joseph was found to have keys matching a residence that had recently been burglarized on the Moncrief Ranch, where Tawnya’s mother worked.
Through the investigation, police discovered that Stromayer wasn’t the one who actually committed the burglary. Instead, two of his friends did the job at his direction and he provided the keys to give them access to the house. The pair made off with a 52-inch flat-screen TV, another HD TV and a shotgun, which was later defaced at Stromayer’s residence.
Interviews with several people associated with the Stromayers provided enough evidence for police to obtain a warrant for Gunnison County Sheriff’s Deputies to search the Stromayers’ house. They found a hard drive with pictures and videos of the stolen items in the Stromayer house or in Tawnya’s truck, along with the sawed-off stock of the stolen shotgun.
After collecting evidence from the Stromayers’ house, more charges were added, including, conspiracy to commit a second burglary, theft by receiving, possession of a weapon by a previous offender and possession of drug paraphernalia. The burglary and theft by receiving charges are both class four felonies. Two additional felonies related to the violation of bail bond conditions were later added on March 18.
Without the plea deal, the case would have gone to a two-day trial on December 21. But the end of the jailhouse saga came early and Joseph Stromayer’s regular moves between the Park County Jail and Gunnison County will turn into a long-term stay in a state prison followed by three years of probation.
