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Habitual thief faces 11 felonies and five misdemeanor charges

Rick Carroll
The Aspen Times
Jeffrey Allen Key

A judge set bond at $40,000 for a habitual criminal who was arrested Thursday on 11 pending felony counts and five misdemeanors.

Aspen police said Jeffrey Allen Key, 50, stole cash and used credit cards to ring up purchases at City Market in Aspen and other businesses. Other credit-card transactions were declined, according to an affidavit written by Aspen Police Detective Jeff Fain.

Key has been on parole after serving five separate prison sentences for theft-related transgressions — two from 2005 and one each from 2005, 2006, 2010 and 2011 — out of Pitkin County.



Key was recently released from the Colorado Department of Corrections, and Fain’s affidavit says that Snowmass Village police were investigating a Snowmass Chapel employee’s report that a man named “Jay” — one of Key’s aliases — had asked the church for some cash to “get back on his feet” after being released from prison after eight years.

Meanwhile, Fain had launched his own investigation into a woman’s report of a stolen credit card, $2,000 in cash and a bag of jewelry from her locked vehicle in Aspen. Fain traced three purchases, made with the stolen card, of $226.18, $246.04 and $3.26 from City Market on Jan. 18, as well as a declined transaction of $517.29 from Clark’s Market the same day. The two larger purchases from City Market were traced to Key’s City Market loyalty card Wednesday, Fain’s affidavit says.




And earlier this month, police learned of another vehicle break-in, in which an American Express card was stolen and used to make a $411.17 purchase from Clark’s Market and another $4,426 purchase from the Roaring Fork Transportation Authority. The card also was used, and denied, at Wal-Mart in Glenwood Springs for a $1,165 purchase that included two electronic tablets. Surveillance videos from the two stores linked the transactions to Key, Fain wrote.

On Thursday, Fain spoke with Key’s parole officer and confirmed Key was staying at the Silver Spruce Motel in Glenwood Springs. Police obtained a search warrant for Key’s motel room, where they seized 20 $100 bills, jewelry and two credit cards with numbers that matched the ones that had been reported stolen, Fain wrote. They also found 23 RFTA bus passes valued at $4,426, Fain’s affidavit says.

Key faces eight felony counts of identity theft, one felony count of theft and two felony charges of trespassing.

rcarroll@aspentimes.com