A federal judge on Tuesday dismissed a man’s claims that a former Boulder County prosecutor “emboldened” an alleged sexual assault victim to alter her story after the original charge was dismissed for lack of probable cause.
The district attorney’s office twice attempted to prosecute Pierce Spinelli for felony sexual assault, his lawsuit alleged. But both times, the cases ended in dismissal. Spinelli then sued the prosecutor and detective who worked on the case, contending they conspired with his accuser to concoct a different version of the encounter after the first unsuccessful prosecution.
In an Oct. 7 order, U.S. District Court Senior Judge William J. Martínez dismissed the claims against ex-Deputy District Attorney Michelle Sudano. He concluded Spinelli failed to identify what actions Sudano specifically took that amounted to fabricating evidence.
“He says that Sudano ’emboldened’ (the accuser) to revise her account of the alleged sexual assault, but the word ’emboldened’ is too vague and nebulous,” Martínez wrote. “The Court does not know whether Sudano allegedly ’emboldened’ (the accuser) by merely comforting her, educating her about the legal standards at issue, talking through the night of the alleged incident to try to jog her memory, feeding her the precise facts to allege … or something else.”
Martínez gave Spinelli until Nov. 3 to pursue an amended complaint if he believed he could address the shortcomings Martínez identified.
Spinelli was a senior at the...
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