The Crested Butte News Serving the Gunnison Valley since 1999
Trial set for June 1, 2021
[ By Katherine Nettles ]
A Crested Butte man charged with eight felonies in Garfield County last year for soliciting child prostitution has pleaded not guilty this week. Thirty-five-year-old Jan Blewett appeared in Garfield County District Court on December 8, as one of nine people charged following an undercover sting operation conducted in 2019. Garfield County judge James Boyd presided over the hearing, and set a five-day trial beginning June 1, 2021.
Blewett is charged with having arranged online to have sex with two children under the age of 15 at a hotel in Glenwood Springs. Those allegedly communicating with him were in fact police agents rather than guardians of the two girls, ages 13 and 14, being presented for the sting. Blewett was a full-time firefighter with the Colorado River Fire Protection District in Rifle and a part-time firefighter with the Crested Butte Fire Protection District at the time of his arrest. He was put on unpaid administrative leave by both fire departments.
Judge Boyd set a deadline for parties to file motions by January 10, 2021, with responses due February 3. There is a motions hearing set for January 26 at 9 a.m. and a pretrial conference set at 3 p.m. on April 13.
