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Man faces meth charge again

A 24-year-old transient arrested late last month on suspicion of possessing methamphetamine after he was seen dancing in the middle of Castle Creek Road was arrested again Saturday on suspicion of possessing the drug, according to court documents.

Nicholas Olson was charged with meth possession as well as violating bail-bond conditions in his previous case, trespassing and possession of drug paraphernalia.

This time an employee of the Casa Tua restaurant called police at 1:18 a.m. Saturday to report a strange man in the employee locker section of the building, according to an Aspen police report filed in District Court. The employee reported seeing the man grabbing a bag in the locker room and placing it under a bench, the report states.



When officers arrived, they saw Olson, whom they recognized from previous contacts, “crouched down over an open backpack on the landing halfway up the stairs,” the report states.

Olson reportedly told officers he didn’t know why he was being arrested.




“He began to deny he was in the locker room, then stopped himself, slumped his head and said, ‘I was. I was,’” according to the police report.

Officers said they then found in Olson’s backpack a broken glass test tube that had a charred substance at the bottom that later tested positive for methamphetamine. Olson’s bond conditions from his July arrest forbid him from consuming drugs, the report states.

Olson was arrested July 26 after first being spotted dancing in the middle of Castle Creek Road, according to a police report. Officers later found him in front of the Aspen Chamber Resort Association on Rio Grande Place “confused and disoriented and sweating profusely” with a “wide-open blank stare,” that report states.

He reportedly told officers at that time he was scared of the shadows and needed to get away from them. Officers said they later found 2.8 grams of methamphetamine on him.

Last weekend’s foray into Casa Tua also wasn’t the first time Olson has been found inside that restaurant. He was arrested in May 2015 after police found him and another person passed out in a Casa Tua stairwell, according to an Aspen Times article.

He later told Aspen’s Municipal Court judge that he didn’t plan on sleeping inside the restaurant stairway that night but that he drank a lot of alcohol and the friend he was going to stay with lost his wallet and keys. He also told the judge he’d been camping out in the Aspen area for about 2½ years.

jauslander@aspentimes.com