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At X Games, more than 30 arrests for underage drinking

Jason Auslander
The Aspen Times

This year’s Winter X Games saw big crowds and big snow but little crime or mayhem.

“The crowd was very well behaved,” said Pitkin County Deputy Alex Burchetta.

Aspen city police officers, however, were busy chalking up more arrests than usual in town, according to police reports.



Area law enforcement officers cited 11 underage kids at the X Games for minor in possession of alcohol or marijuana, said Deputy Bruce Benjamin, who handles juvenile cases in Pitkin County. Officials from the Colorado Department of Revenue cited another 20 kids for minor in possession, Burchetta said.

Law enforcement also transported about 15 overly-intoxicated adults to a detox facility located in the Rio Grande Room across from the Pitkin County Jail, he said.




The only major arrest was Katherine Kronen, 27, of Boulder, who was cited for cocaine distribution after she tried to go through security with a cloth bag containing 21 individual, one-gram baggies of the drug, according to a police report.

Kronen told police a “girlfriend” of hers named Sandra gave her the cloth bag before they entered, though she couldn’t recall Sandra’s last name, the report states. She said she assumed the bag held her friend’s money and personal items. Kronen denied any knowledge of the cocaine, according to the report.

“Kronen continued to tell us she did not know what was happening or how the drugs ended up in her possession,” the report states. “Throughout the interview, Kronen pretended to cry to show she was upset.”

Meanwhile, Aspen police officers arrested eight people in town over the weekend, a relatively large number for the agency. Crimes ranged from assault and domestic violence to trespassing to DUI to two New Jersey girls arrested for allegedly beating up a local woman who chastised them for cutting in the bathroom line at a downtown nightclub.

When officers arrived at Bootsy Bellows to investigate the incident early Friday morning, the two New Jersey women “immediately became irate and started yelling things at (the local woman),” including threatening to kill her, the report states.

Alexandria Acosta, 25, of Hoboken, New Jersey, and Kara Bruno, 26 of East Windsor, New Jersey, both claimed the local woman cut in front of them in the bathroom line, then “went crazy” on them when they called her on it, according to a police report. However, a witness who didn’t know any of the three women said the opposite occurred and that it was the two New Jersey women who did the attacking, the report states.

The victim said the two women “became irate” when she confronted them about cutting, and that one of the women pushed her while the other attacked her. She attempted to fight them off, but ended up curling into a fetal position to protect herself, the report states.

Acosta and Bruno were each charged with disorderly conduct.

On Saturday, officers also arrested a 34-year-old Englewood woman for allegedly stealing items from Ute Mountaineer and possession of burglary tools, according to a police report.

Jennifer Helms initially would not let officers search a bag she had with her because she said it contained marijuana and “dirty under garments,” the report states. However, a friend of hers showed up on scene and she allowed him to look through her bag.

“A number of items described by store employees were in her possession with the tags still on the items,” the report states. “Helms could not provide any receipts for any of the items that were in her bag.”

She also had a “Silver Husky wire cutting tool in her bag that is typically used in the crime of theft to remove the sensors that are part of loss prevention,” according to the police report.

Helms also had an item taken from Zema, a downtown lingerie shop, the report states.

jauslander@aspentimes.com

Crime


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