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 - 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"

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

  "Catch-16"

More

2010 Stories by Alan Prendergast

• Gruesome inmate-on-inmate slaying: Westword joins fight for the video

  published Mar 09, 2010

  Since its first issue, slapped together in a prison cell two decades ago, Prison Legal News has run hundreds of articles on abuse and corruption in local jails and state and federal prisons, shining a... More >>

• Kristen Parker, Ashton Daigle: Same insanity, different results

  published Mar 08, 2010

  All things considered, Ashton Daigle can consider himself a very lucky man. On March 5, the former surgery nurse was sentenced to 54 months in federal prison for "tampering with a consumer product" -... More >>

• Ken Salazar: Here's our proposed list of new Colorado monuments

  published Mar 04, 2010

  Secretary of the Interior Ken Salazar faced some impertinent questions from a Senate committee yesterday about an internal memo suggesting that his agency is actively seeking nominations for new natio... More >>

• DIA parties like it's 1995, plans big changes by 2025

  published Mar 03, 2010

  Denver International Airport celebrated its fifteenth anniversary this past weekend by erecting a scale model of a Boeing 787 wing and (according to this tut-tutting 9News story) handing out $9,000 wo... More >>

• 

  COVER STORY

  DIA Dreams: Aviation director Kim Day plans to take DIA where no airport has gone before

  published March 4, 2010

  Before the late-night jokes about the baggage system, before the opening-day snowstorm and the seven-hour breakdown of the train system on... More >>

• Kristen Parker fallout: Rose patient Lauren Lollini says new legislation a "first step" to preventing more hep-C infections like hers

  published Mar 02, 2010

  Lauren Lollini knew someone had to speak up. That's one reason she decided to go public last year about her ordeal, letting Westword use her face and name in "Going Viral," a feature about what dozen... More >>

• Health care summit: Democrats and Republicans agree the policy that led to Jennifer Latham's $37 million verdict against Assurant Health must go

  published Mar 01, 2010

  Last week's summit on health care reform in Washington produced the expected speechifying and little consensus on what's to be done. But there's one point that Democrats and Republicans echoed each ot... More >>

• Jane Norton and her "liberal buddies" attacked for big spending

  published Feb 26, 2010

  As noted here a few weeks ago, Colorado's U.S. Senate race is shaping up to be an epic mudwallow, with GOP hopeful Jane Norton painting incumbent Michael Bennet as the spend-crazy flunky of a soft-on... More >>

• Drug sentencing debate: Time for a gram of sanityr

  published Feb 24, 2010

  After years of fizzled efforts, Colorado may be close this year to legislation that could reduce slammer-oriented penalties not only for marijuana possession but small quantities of other drugs. Bette... More >>

• A North City Park resident says his dogs' accuser is barking up the wrong tree

  published February 25, 2010

  Lawrence D. Bockar is the first to admit that he isn't perfect. The 67-year-old retired radiologist — "L.D." to his friends — has... More >>

• Census 2010: Do you have what it takes to be a takerr

  published Feb 22, 2010

  It's the start of the decade, and that means the U.S. Census Bureau is posting fliers everywhere, looking for temporary, part-time help to ring doorbells and glean data. Pay starts at $16.25 an hour i... More >>

• Bet on it: The house edge is never big enough for greedhead Colorado casinos

  published Feb 19, 2010

  This week's decision by the Colorado Limited Gaming Control Commissionto allow casinos to pay 6-5 on blackjack isn't exactly a shocker. The gaming regulators aim to please, and the casino operators kn... More >>

• Edward Nottingham: "Naughty" non-investigation proceeds with relentless inertia

  published Feb 18, 2010

  Almost two years ago -- fittingly, on April Fool's Day -- Sean Harrington filed a complaint with the Colorado Office of Attorney Regulation Counsel requesting an investigation of U.S. District Judge E... More >>

• Census problem: Are Colorado prisoners rural residents or urban visitorsr

  published Feb 15, 2010

  The 2010 census gives states a new option for how to count their prison population, a move that could provide additional political leverage to urban areas -- which, in Colorado, means more power to th... More >>

• Good dog! Canine heaven at National Western

  published Feb 12, 2010

  Every year around this time, the Westminster Kennel Club puts on its hifalutin, thoroughly mockable parade of purebreds, all vying to star in the next Christopher Guest movie. And around the same time... More >>

• Jennifer Latham's $37 million verdict against Assurant Health: Will it impact the health care debater

  published Feb 11, 2010

  This week's cover story, "You're in Bad Hands," follows a Lafayette woman's four-year battle with her health insurance company after a devastating car accident left her seriously injured, saddled with... More >>

• Assurant Health CEO Don Hamm stumped by his own company's paperwork

  published Feb 10, 2010

  This week's cover story, "You're in Bad Hands" (click here for the main article, and here for the sidebar), digs into the story behind the whopping $37 million bad-faith verdict a Boulder jury recent... More >>

• Health-Care Hell: The insurance company didn't give a damn. The jury decided it ought to give $37 million.

  published February 11, 2010

  Standing in a Boulder courtroom on a blustery Friday evening, waiting for the jury to return with its verdict, Jennifer Latham feels a knot... More >>

• There's no insurance against a bad health-insurance company

  published February 11, 2010

  The company that took away More >>

• Eric Winfield, artist beaten by Denver cops, fights back with Facebook

  published Feb 09, 2010

  In the absence of any explanation from the cops who beat him, local artist Eric Winfield has turned to social media to pose a simple question about the events of October 27, 2007: Whyr That was the ... More >>

• Hal Hebert, convicted wife murderer, says the real perp is serial killer Richard White

  published Feb 08, 2010

  Seven years ago, after an emotional murder trial that was rich in incriminating circumstantial evidence but short on motive, a Denver jury found Hal Hebert guilty of shooting his wife Carol in 2001 in... More >>

• John Johnson, still lost in the system: Counting the years of his never-ending parole

  published Feb 04, 2010

  Four years ago, in a feature called "Over and Over Again," I reported on the staggering number of nonviolent offenders stuck in Colorado's revolving-door version of parole -- and costing the state mil... More >>

• 

  FEATURED STORY

  Jurors explain stunning $37 million verdict against Assurant Health

  published Feb 01, 2010

  Last Friday, as six Boulder County jurors tried to determine punitive damages in the case of a woman whose health insurance company refused to pay her medical bills after a devastating auto accident, ... More >>

• Big time bad faith: $37 million award against health insuror in case of injured Longmont woman

  published Jan 29, 2010

  Deciding on one of the largest punitive damage verdicts in Colorado history, a Boulder jury has awarded $37 million to a mother of four whose health insurance company refused to pay medical bills afte... More >>

• Carol Chambers loses latest round in death-penalty battle

  published Jan 28, 2010

  Eighteenth Judicial District Attorney Carol Chambers has had her ups and downs in her efforts to obtain the death penalty for two Limon inmates accused of killing a prison snitch. Almost two years ag... More >>