Teller County CO March 13 2020
Jason Mikesell might be watching you.
But is he conducting surveillance as Teller County sheriff? Or is he doing so as head of his private company, which employs a stable of local peace officers now in hot water over their part in Mikesell’s profit-making enterprises?
As sheriff, a post he’s held since being appointed in May 2017, Mikesell is paid $104,889 by county taxpayers.
But as owner and chief executive officer of iXero LLC and at least seven other firms he owns, the sky’s the limit.
Described as “the world’s premiere [sic] security provider,” iXero commanded nearly $500,000 for one 30-day contract and landed a $3.5 million security job in a West Coast school district.
Public records document that Mikesell has spent hundreds of hours working for his side businesses’ clients while serving as sheriff. In the past 15 months, he's made several real estate deals in Woodland Park on property totaling $1.5 million, including a luxury home and two commercial properties.
In his moonlighting job, Mikesell offers a range of services to clients worldwide through a web of private companies, several of which he established after pinning on his sheriff’s badge.
The menu includes surveillance, appraisal of security gaps for businesses and schools, security training and, as one of his associates put it, investigating “high-end financial crimes.”
To carry out that work, Mikesell relies on “the best and most experienced security professionals from the military, law enforcement, and cyber security fields,” his iXero website says.
Some of those were plucked from the elite Metropolitan Vice, Narcotics & Intelligence Division (Metro VNI), comprising officers from Colorado Springs Police Department (CSPD), El Paso County Sheriff’s Office (EPSO) and the Fountain Police Department.
And several EPSO and CSPD officers working under Mikesell’s private umbrella found themselves under investigation for alleged policy infractions, including surveilling people on Mikesell’s behalf and affixing tracking devices to “target” vehicles without the owners’ knowledge.
But none of that bothers Mikesell, who says no laws were broken and if those officers failed to get permission to work for him off-duty, it’s not his fault.
“So I did hire folks from El Paso County and Colorado Springs, off-duty deputies and off-duty officers,” he says in an interview. “That has nothing to do with the [Teller County] Sheriff’s Office. This was a private deal. And they did a good job. I have nothing to hide with that.” (It’s worth noting that Mikesell refused to provide a full list of EPSO deputies who worked for his company, and other documentation, to the IA investigator.)
While a leading ethics expert says Mikesell’s simultaneous career tracks raise “lots of red flags,” Mikesell doesn’t see it that way, and doesn’t think Teller County taxpayers do either.
My private business has no relationship to the Teller County Sheriff's Office. — Sheriff Jason Mikesell
“The issue is, it’s a private company,” he says. “Why should they have issues with a private company? It doesn’t interfere with anything that I do here at the sheriff’s office.”
"No sheriff works 24 hours a day."
Mikesell’s two worlds — as sheriff and entrepreneur — collided when it came to light that CSPD and EPSO detectives worked for Mikesell’s private businesses. Both departments opened internal affairs (IA) investigations to delve into whether the arrangement violated policy, the law or both. Both departments require prior approval for outside work. While EPSO bars working as an investigator on the side, CSPD allows it only outside the 4th Judicial District, which includes El Paso and Teller counties.
EPSO spokesperson Jackie Kirby says two deputies were disciplined, two reserve officers resigned, one deputy was exonerated, and a third reserve officer remains with the department.
The CSPD investigation is pending.
According to the 28-page EPSO report obtained by the Indy — with many names and other material redacted — the iXero arrangement came to light when the estranged wife of a CSPD detective called CSPD’s internal affairs department on Sept. 9, 2019, to report that her husband and other Metro VNI members were working for Mikesell “without the knowledge of their home agencies.”
Five Metro VNI members were named, including Phil Gurnett with EPSO. Later, IA investigators discovered at least five other EPSO employees also worked for Mikesell. The number under investigation at CSPD remains under wraps.
EPSO’s IA investigator, Sgt. Aric Powell, determined that none of the EPSO deputies had obtained Colorado private investigator licenses, which would have violated department policy. But his report says CSPD’s IA investigator, Sgt. Shannon Snuggs, discovered four CSPD employees had become licensed PIs in August. Records show the state issued PI licenses to CSPD officers Larry LeRoy Dyer Jr., Michael Harold Garnett, Reuben Crews and Gregory Scott Reeder during that month. Teller County Sheriff’s Commander Greg Couch, who also works for Mikesell’s side businesses, obtained a private investigator license on Aug. 7, 2018, and renewed it June 1, 2019.
Powell’s investigation found only one deputy associated with Mikesell’s company, Sgt. Greg White, followed policy by getting permission. He told Powell he worked off-duty hours from home and used vacation days twice to visit the project site in California. He said his work involved "reviewing policies, response plans" and reviewing school security and law enforcement response but no private investigation work.
But records obtained by the Indy show Mikesell billed a client for 70 hours of White’s time logged from Jan. 6 to Feb. 6, 2019, which predated White’s Feb. 9 outside-work request being approved by then-Undersheriff Joe Breister.
A 17-year veteran of EPSO who works on the bomb squad, White tallied 278 hours of work during 63 days from January through July for Mikesell’s iXero company, records show. iXero’s invoices show Mikesell billed $180 per hour for White’s work, or $50,040 during that six months, while White told Powell he was paid $25,000 for his iXero work. (An EPSO sergeant earns $89,835 a year.)
White was exonerated by Powell's investigation.
Fuzzy’s Taco Shop on Dublin Boulevard served as a meeting place for those working for Mikesell, the IA investigation revealed. Then-Metro VNI Detective Phil Gurnett, a 22-year EPSO employee, admitted to Powell he used his department cell phone to find directions to Fuzzy’s.
He also admitted to using his work cell phone to search for information about an iXero surveillance “target” — an elderly man in Denver — at least three times in July 2019.
Moreover, while in Denver for a Metro VNI operation, he used his work vehicle, while on duty, to meet up with a trash worker in connection with the iXero surveillance work. “Det. Gurnett paid [name redacted] $100 each time to pick up trash from a residence and bring it to him so he could go through the trash looking for indicia,” Powell’s report says.
Asked what he found, Gurnett said, “Weird stuff, like, uh, people doing business in, uh, Saudi Arabia, um, oil-type business, there was like ... like, weird contracts and stuff.” Though he said he found “nothing criminal,” he did identify items he thought suggested “they were doing fraudulent business.”
Gurnett, who worked for iXero in 2018 and 2019, said his “pattern-of-life” surveillance work charted his targets’ comings and goings. In one case, he watched “a family [that] had a 36 million dollar civil suit against them ... which the [name redacted] family failed to pay. The surveillance was to determine if the [name redacted] family was hiding money from the client.” In another assignment, he monitored a man whom he characterized as “like a Harvard lawyer” who “owed large sums of money.”
Gurnett even went to Florida for 10 days to track a target for iXero, and one operation called for him to install a tracking device on a vehicle. For his 65 days of work, Mikesell’s company paid him $14,000.
Gurnett told Powell he had “no good reason” for not seeking permission and was “guilty as charged.” He quit iXero in August 2019.
The Sheriff’s Office found Gurnett violated policy and issued him a letter of reprimand, reassigning him from Metro VNI to patrol indefinitely.
Deputy Mark Stevens, a 17-year EPSO veteran, followed the rules in 2009 and again in September 2019 for pursuing outside work teaching hunter education and firearms safety.
But when iXero came knocking, he didn’t seek permission, because the opportunity arose quickly and he viewed it as a “one-time deal.” He said he initially didn’t realize the job required surveillance, but he, too, placed a tracking device on a vehicle in Denver amid an iXero investigation.
“In reference to the tracker usage,” the IA report says, “Dep. Stevens said [name redacted] told him ‘Everything’s legitimate.’”
Stevens also conducted surveillance in California in February 2019 for iXero during which he contacted a female CSPD analyst, who also worked for iXero, he told Powell. He gave the analyst a person’s name, and she sent him the person’s address via text. Stevens said he didn’t know how the analyst obtained the address.
Stevens said iXero paid him $3,000 to $3,500 for the two surveillance jobs. Asked why he didn’t ask permission, Stevens told Powell, “It was an error in judgement [sic].”
Found to be in violation of policies, Stevens was issued a letter of reprimand and was reassigned from training to patrol. He’s also barred from outside employment for a year.
Besides White, Gurnett and Stevens, EPSO investigated three reserve deputies, all of whose names are redacted from the IA report because they’re not full-time employees, says Kirby.
How do you determine when they're actually doing it as a law enforcement officer or as a private citizen? — CSPD Chief Vince Niski
One told Powell he serves as a high-ranking iXero officer and was paid $850 a day. He described Mikesell’s company as “basically a security company” which also conducted “domestic surveillance [investigative] projects.”
“We have a bunch of VNI guys working a surveillance job in Denver,” the reserve officer told Powell. Noting a nondisclosure agreement he signed for Mikesell, he couldn’t discuss “client details of iXero’s work in Denver,” though he said it was a “noncriminal” case. The reserve officer said iXero investigated “high-end financial crimes” and “embezzlement mainly.”
Besides a “long term project overseas involving primarily ex-military employees,” the reserve officer said iXero had three surveillance contracts underway at the time he was interviewed in late September 2019. Those jobs were overseen by Greg Couch, who also works for the Teller County Sheriff’s Office as a commander in operations, narcotics, professional standards and as the public information officer.
On Oct. 11, El Paso County Sheriff Bill Elder directed a lieutenant “to contact all employees involved in this case and order them to cease and desist all work” for Mikesell, according to the IA report.
Elder declined to comment on the IA report, but when asked if he would run a business on the side while serving as sheriff, he said through Kirby, “I have not, nor do I plan to run a business on the side” while serving as sheriff.
Asked why, he said he is “never not the sheriff.” (Emphasis added.)
The Sheriff’s Office’s policies governing outside work, Kirby says, stem from “a worry about conflict of interest.”
“Being [Peace Officers Standards Training]-certified,” she says, “you’re held to a higher standard, and the Sheriff’s Office needs to know how it’s being represented when you’re on duty and off duty.”
As for CSPD’s pending investigation, Chief Vince Niski said in an interview, “We take the allegations of misconduct very seriously, so we’re putting forth the effort to investigate fully to make a determination whether there was a policy violation.”
Like Elder, Niski has ordered all personnel to stop working for Mikesell, but those under the microscope continue at their regular jobs pending completion of the probe, he says.
Although CSPD policy permits off-duty officers to work on investigations outside the 4th Judicial District, with permission, Niski emphasizes that doesn’t mean he would approve such work.
“How do you determine when they’re actually doing it as a law enforcement officer or as a private detective? That’s my concern,” he says. “As a general rule, how does a person determine whether they’re working under color of law enforcement or their private investigator [license] at a given time?”
Those questions lead Niski to believe it’s time to revisit and “tighten up” the 2013 outside-work policy, he says.
In the interest of disclosure, Niski acknowledges he used to work construction on the side but hasn’t performed outside work since reaching the command staff level about 10 years ago.
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