Colorado man convicted of kidnapping, robbery released from Cañon City prison after plea deal

DENVER — He was convicted in 2000 for kidnapping and robbing a Cherry Creek shopper, letting her go after getting $1,000 from the sufferer. He was sentenced to 77 years in jail.

However now he will likely be launched from the Cañon Metropolis facility he’s been housed in for greater than 22 years after the Denver district legal professional’s workplace reached a plea deal, in accordance with an announcement from the DA’s workplace Tuesday.

Jason Hogan, 43, maintains his innocence, claiming the investigation was mishandled by police from the start. He was convicted of kidnapping a girl from the Cherry Creek Procuring Heart on March 2, 2000, and robbing her.

On Tuesday, Denver District Lawyer Beth McCann introduced that after Hogan, represented by the Korey Clever Innocence Undertaking, offered his case to DA’s newly-formed Conviction Evaluate Unit staff, she agreed to a brand new plea settlement to which Hogan pleaded responsible to second-degree kidnapping and was resentenced to time served.

Beneath the plea settlement generally known as an Alford plea, Hogan maintains his innocence however admits that there’s proof that, if believed by a jury, may result in his conviction. McCann stated she talked to the sufferer within the case earlier than the plea deal was agreed to.

“We respect the Korey Clever Innocence Undertaking bringing this case to our consideration,” McCann stated in a information launch. “We weren’t capable of conclude that Mr. Hogan didn’t commit this crime however given the truth that there was a subsequent very comparable theft and that info was not offered to us at the moment so it might be disclosed to the protection counsel, we agreed that it was truthful and within the curiosity of justice to resolve the case on this method.”

Based on police, the sufferer was on the mall procuring with relations when she went to her automobile within the parking storage. When she was getting in her van, she was approached by a person, described as a white male in his late teenagers or early 20s, with a gun who informed her to drive him to a financial institution.

On the financial institution, the suspect ordered the sufferer to jot down a $1,000 verify, and the sufferer and suspect, sitting within the passenger seat of the sufferer’s minivan, went via the drive-up teller line the place she gave the suspect the cash, in accordance with the narrative in Hogan’s arrest warrant.

After the financial institution withdrawal, the suspect was dropped off at a close-by strip mall however warned the sufferer to not name police earlier than he fled on foot from the strip mall. The sufferer recognized Hogan in a lineup as the person who kidnapped and robbed her a couple of week after the incident, the warrant stated.

The March 2 incident was a part of a string of comparable robberies of girls on the procuring heart. Denver7 reported on the time that police and mall officers have been taking the incidents critically and beefing up patrols. Nonetheless, Hogan claims

In a 2014 weblog submit, Hogan writes that the investigators failed to check for fingerprints on the sufferer’s driver’s license the suspect had allegedly handed through the theft. Hogan additionally claims that the sufferer informed police that the assailant had tattoos on his fingers, but Hogan stated he didn’t have any markings on his fingers.

McCann stated the Conviction Evaluate Unit has acquired 45 sentence discount functions, 26 clemency requests and 42 precise innocence functions.