Email Author Alan Prendergast

Awards

• 2011 - Gerald Loeb Award for Distinguished Business and Financial Journalism, published February 11, 2010

  "You're in Bad Hands"

• 2011 - Best of the West/First Amendment Funding, Inc., published September 30, 2010

  "Black Out"

• 2011 - Best of the West/First Amendment Funding, Inc., published November 4, 2010

  "Like an Open Book"

• 2011 - AAN AltWeekly Awards, published February 11, 2010

  "You're in Bad Hands"

• 2011 - Society of Professional Journalists/Colorado Chapter, published February 11, 2010

  "You're in Bad Hands"

• 2010 - National Council on Crime and Delinquency/Prevention for a Safer Society Award, published October 22, 2009

  "The Quality of Mercy"

• 2010 - AAN AltWeekly Awards, published May 14, 2009

  "The Giveaway"

• 2010 - Maggies: The Magazine Awards of Western Publishing, published February 11, 2010

  "You're in Bad Hands"

• 2009 - Society of Professional Journalists/Colorado Chapter, published April 10, 2008

  "Miles and Miles"

• 2008 - Sigma Delta Chi Awards/Society of Professional Journalists, published August 16, 2007

  "The Caged Life"

• 2008 - AAN AltWeekly Awards, published February 8, 2007

  "The Punisher"

• 2006 - National Council on Crime and Delinquency/Prevention for a Safer Society Award, published December 8, 2005

  "Catch-16"

• 2006 - AAN AltWeekly Awards, published May 12, 2005

  "If the Shoe Fits"

• 2006 - AAN AltWeekly Awards, published June 23, 2005

  "Welcome to America"

• 2006 - AAN AltWeekly Awards, published September 8, 2005

  "Duke of Oil"

More

2009 Stories by Alan Prendergast

• A falling out among "coconspirators" in Jeffco spy case

  published Jul 23, 2009

    The proverbial wheels of justice turn slowly but not always surely. So it's always interesting when the gears spit out a real acknowledgment of wrongdoing, even if the folks involved are all po... More >>

• Caught on tape: when lawyers attack

  published Jul 21, 2009

  As I reported last week, things got pretty testy near the end of the three-day disciplinary hearing for attorney Mark Brennan. A physical confrontation between Brennan and his chief accuser, Kim Ike... More >>

• 

  FEATURED STORY

  Mark Brennan: He's loud, he's physical, he's profane. But does that make him a bad lawyerr

  published Jul 17, 2009

  It began with Presiding Disciplinary Judge William Lucero slapping attorney Mark Brennan with two contempt citations. It ended with Brennan leaning into opposing counsel Kim Ikeler, moving him bodil... More >>

• Ken Salazar pushing for "more balanced" hard rockin'

  published Jul 14, 2009

  No law is truly written in stone. Not even those tablets Charlton Heston brought down from the top of Mount Hollywood in The Ten Commandments, which looked suspiciously like slabs of heavy cardboard... More >>

• Judge to DA Carol Chambers: Get cracking

  published Jul 14, 2009

  Julie Stene has waited nine years for her day in court, and Arapahoe County District Judge Carlos Samour Jr. figures that's long enough. Denying a reluctant district attorney's effort to further del... More >>

• Is there an elderly child killer on the prowl in Denverr

  published Jul 09, 2009

  The way Jim Benish tells it, if local law enforcement agencies don't manage to solve two and possibly three notorious, decades-old child murder cases, it won't be because they don't have enough evid... More >>

• If DA Carol Chambers is right, everybody else is wrong

  published Jul 09, 2009

  It's rare for a judge to order a reluctant district attorney to purse a rape case, finding that the DA's decision not to file was arbitrary, capricious and unreasonable. But that's what happened las... More >>

• Coroner's opponent charges "malicious, outrageous conduct"

  published Jul 01, 2009

  There's not much respect and affection to be found between former colleagues David Shaklee and Jim Hibbard. The controversial Adams County coroner whose strained dealings with other agencies and his... More >>

• The way the Adams County Coroner is running his office could be dead wrong

  published July 2, 2009

  On a quiet Sunday morning last February, Jaime Brown arrived at that dark and unthinkable place every young mother dreads. She walked into the... More >>

• Ken Salazar names new chief for scandal-plagued MMS

  published Jun 26, 2009

  As we reported several moons ago in a Westword feature entitled "The Zen of Ken," one of Ken Salazar's first official acts as Secretary of the Interior was to visit the Lakewood office of the Minera... More >>

• Katrina scammer to taxpayers: My bad, totally

  published Jun 24, 2009

  We get so many letters from prisoners proclaiming their innocence of any and all misdeeds that it's curiously refreshing when one admits that he did something wrong. Wrong and dumb. So this recent, ... More >>

• Judge to suicide's family: Will must be honored

  published Jun 19, 2009

  A Jefferson County judge threw out objections Friday afternoon to a suicide's controversial will, ruling that the man's estate must go to a prominent Denver charity -- even though his family contend... More >>

• Forget Shane: Come back, Christo! Christo, come back!

  published Jun 19, 2009

  As noted in a previous blog, "Doing the Math on Christo's Arkansas River Wrap," Colorado art mavens and opinion leaders are just crrraaaazy about Over the River, the proposal by husband-and-wife art... More >>

• Male guards and female prisoners -- a brilliant idea!

  published Jun 12, 2009

  There's plenty to get disgusted about in the story of a Colorado female inmate who was awarded $1.3 million in damages for two years' worth of sexual assaults by a male guard. As this report in the ... More >>

• "Sheriff" Salazar rounds up some artifact rustlers

  published Jun 10, 2009

  In his first few weeks as Secretary of the Interior, former Colorado Senator Ken Salazar was fond of sporting his cowboy hat and declaring that there's a new sheriff in town -- even though the work ... More >>

• Foreclosurer Even the "Sleeper House" feels the pinch

  published Jun 10, 2009

  Nobody and no property, it seems, are immune from the housing crisis. According to this report in the Denver Business Journal, one of Colorado's most distinctive residences was headed for foreclosur... More >>

• Rick Rosner's latest gig: obsessed, in treatment

  published Jun 09, 2009

  It's been a long, strange trip for former Westword cover boy Rick Rosner, who debuted in these pages in 1986 as a roller-skating stripper/waiter who also happened to be the second-smartest man in Am... More >>

• Why so much gun crimer Ask the shooters

  published Jun 03, 2009

  Three Colorado professors wanted to know more about gun violence in America -- the social and cultural forces driving illegal gun use, how criminals view their gats, how they use them and why. So th... More >>

• Judge gives inventor three years -- and his company a death sentence

  published May 28, 2009

  One of the strangest sentencing hearings ever to unfold in Denver's federal court came to an end Wednesday, after five days of often-bewildering testimony. Convicted last year on 23 counts of fraud ... More >>

• Judge to DA Chambers: rape case decision "arbitrary, capricious"

  published May 26, 2009

  An Arapahoe County judge has issued a scathing order calling for a special prosecutor in a sexual assault case, while at the same time describing the local district attorney's excuses for failing to... More >>

• The nightmare behind the indy doc Bicycle Dreams

  published May 26, 2009

  California filmmaker Stephen Auerbach had his work cut out for him when he decided to make a documentary about the Race Across America four years ago. Although well-known in elite biking circles, RA... More >>

• Gitmo hysteria and Colorado's prison-happy Fremont County

  published May 22, 2009

  That annoying, low-pitched whine you hear is the bipartisan complaining from Colorado lawmakers, true blue and beet red, all bent out of shape and quaking in their Crocs over a simple little suggest... More >>

• Alternative fuel guru's investors don't feel defrauded -- except by the feds

  published May 19, 2009

  There's an unusual and somewhat drawn-out sentencing hearing unfolding in federal court this week, as U.S. District Judge Lewis Babcock ponders what to do with William Orr, an inventor and promoter ... More >>

• Suicide prevention and the John Beech dilemma

  published May 15, 2009

  The photo at right was taken by Lakewood police when they entered John Beech's home last August 1. It shows the 53-year-old retired Coors manager's will, keys, car titles and other important documen... More >>

• Sheriff Salazar stalled by posse politics

  published May 13, 2009

  Republicans rallied the troops in the Senate this morning and managed to block the much-delayed confirmation of David Hayes, Ken "New Sheriff in Town" Salazar's choice to serve as his top deputy at ... More >>