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News in Brief

GLENWOOD SPRINGS ” A district judge decided Tuesday that check fraud suspect Peter Frommer should be allowed to have a public defender for the remainder of his case.

The Glenwood Springs office of the state public defender was denied on a motion to withdraw from the case due to questions about Frommer’s indigency.



Frommer is charged with more than two dozen fraud-related crimes and will appear in court, likely for an arraignment, on Nov. 19.

At the Glenwood hearing, prosecutor Gail Nichols brought up the fact that Frommer had spent at least a month living in $161-a-night digs in Snowmass Village on someone else’s credit card.




“I thought that was fairly extravagant,” said Nichols. “If someone can pay for that then they can pay for a lawyer.”

District Judge James Boyd ruled that if someone else is helping support Frommer, it doesn’t speak directly to Frommer’s indigency. Boyd left open the possibility that Frommer will have to pay for the legal representation at the end of the trial.

BASALT ” Basalt firefighters saved two trailers in the El Jebel Mobile Home Park Tuesday after a fence caught on fire and spread to the residences, fire chief Scott Thompson said.

A passerby came to the fire station in El Jebel at about 3 p.m. to report seeing a nearby fence on fire, Thompson said. The first fire fighters arrived on scene within four minutes, he said.

They quickly extinguished a fire that spread to the porch of a mobile home at 50 Rhianne St. and the roof of an adjacent mobile home, Thompson said. Fortunately, the scene was across El Jebel Road from the ballpark, less than 1 mile from the fire house.

“Within a couple of minutes we would have had roofs of two trailers on fire,” Thompson said.

He estimated there was $2,500 damage between the two trailers. No occupants were injured. Eleven firefighters responded.

Thompson said the fire originated in a pile of carpet, padding and rags next to the fence. It appeared the rags were used to remove glue from a floor before new carpet was laid in one of the trailers. Spontaneous combustion was suspected.