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Big Trouble

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Haney did manage to hire a few more girls, mostly meth users. On The Other Board, one user posted this review of his date from Touch Companions last fall: "Ariel was fun to spend time with. I think she got into the session as much as I did, which made me get into it even more. She's got a devilish smile that lets you know good things await. She says that she's Œkind of an addict' and that seems to mean she's gonna make sure she has a good time, which is more than alright by me."

On November 7, Haney was picked up by police on a warrant for his year-old forgery case. After a week, April and other employees managed to scrape up enough money for bail. On the way home from jail, April says, Haney smoked meth in the car.

Haney was getting increasingly strung out and paranoid. "Just about every penny that any girl made as far as a drop went right back out the door to the dealer," April says. "Every single penny."

In the early-morning hours of December 7, April went to Haney's house to make a drop from the money she'd earned that evening. Haney and Papson told her that they wanted to talk to her. As April sat down, Haney went into his room and then emerged with a baseball bat. He began hitting April on the head, she says, accusing her of "stealing" more than eleven calls a day. They kept April there for hours, taking all the money she had in her purse and car.

At five the next morning, they finally let her call for a ride. Her boyfriend and fifteen-year-old daughter picked her up and wanted to take her to the hospital. "I just want to go home," April yelled. After sleeping for twelve hours straight, she went to Swedish Medical Center. By then, however, it was too late for stitches, since many of the gashes on her head had already clotted with blood.

It was not too late to file a police report detailing the beating.

"The verdict is still out on who did it the right way," ends Gary Haney's About Me profile. "But for now I'm gonna have to say I wouldn't change any of it."

The verdict on Gary Haney's criminal case is still in the works. Last Friday, a fourth-floor courtroom in the Denver City and County Building was crowded with spectators and defendants waiting for hearings on their felony cases when Haney was brought in, shackled to another inmate. His beard had grown out, and he was wearing eyeglasses that looked too small for his head. In fact, everything looked too small for Haney -- from the stretched waist of the prison jumpsuit to the too-tight chain that wrapped around his back and connected to his handcuffs.

After the guard instructed the defendants to take a seat in the jury box, Haney leaned back awkwardly in his chair and was barely able to clutch his hands around the circumference of his belly. He surveyed the courtroom and spotted Steve Papson seated in the crowd. Papson, tall and fit with wavy reddish hair, is out on bail and also had a hearing on February 17. (Papson's attorney declined Westword's request to speak with his client.)

Haney's case was up first. As he approached the podium, his public defender told the judge that her client had waived his right to a preliminary hearing and proposed that the assault and robbery charges be combined with his pending forgery case at a hearing on March 3. With all three charges, Haney faces a maximum of 21 years in jail.

The judge granted the petition to conjoin the two cases. The lawyer then asked that Haney's bond be reduced to $15,000. His bond is currently set at $50,000, an amount he has not been about to make -- which is why he's been sitting in Denver County Jail since he was taken into custody on January 8. It took almost a month after the warrant was first issued for police to arrest Haney at Papson's home, where he had continued to run Touch Companions.

For the first two weeks after the beating, April stayed in hiding. But soon she was working for another escort agency. In late December, she ran into a friend who said that she was still working for Touch Companions. "And I'm sitting there thinking, 'What's wrong with you people? How can you sit there and work for him and help him earn money to keep him out of jail for something that he did to me? If he can do it to me, he can do it to you.' And he's going to do it again," she says. "And you know what? That person's not going to walk out of that house. They will be dead."

On Friday, April got her chance to tell that to the judge. Wearing a fleece jacket and camouflage cargo pants, she emerged from a side room and approached the microphone. "I would ask you please to not reduce the bail," she said. "I have been in fear for my life." April started to cry. "I'm afraid he'll do something when he gets out."

After April stepped down, Haney's lawyer presented her argument: that Haney has no prior felony conviction and that "he has substantial ties to the community with family, friends and his business." And that there are problems with April's version of the incident. "All the photos [taken at the hospital] show cuts, but no injuries that would go along with a brutal attack," she argued. Plus, there's the fact that Haney made no effort to flee during the weeks before he was finally arrested.

The judge, looking at the file, noted that the "injuries are not as serious as complained about by the accuser," but decided to err on the side of caution and denied Haney's request to reduce bail.

Haney's face sagged with disappointment for a moment, and then he walked back to his chair. Before sitting, he looked down at the black plastic arms, the narrow seat. Looks like everything is going to be much smaller from here on out.

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