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Wife of slain prisons chief speaks out

Lisa Clements demands Bob Beauprez quit using her family’s tragedy as fodder

DENVER – Republican gubernatorial candidate Bob Beauprez has edited a controversial ad after the wife of slain prisons chief Tom Clements broke her silence to express outrage.

Lisa Clements suggested that the Beauprez camp has been using her murdered husband as political fodder, and she demanded the campaign stop the political maneuvering in favor of more sensitivity.

“Mr. Beauprez, it is with great sadness and frustration that I am breaking my silence on matters involving the death of my husband. On several occasions this year, you have attempted to use our family’s tragic loss for your personal and political gain, and we are respectfully asking you to stop,” Lisa Clements wrote to Beauprez in a letter distributed to reporters Thursday.

What triggered her to break her silence was an ad by the Beauprez camp that features a home on a dark street with crickets in the background: “Under John Hickenlooper, violent criminal Evan Ebel was released from prison and brutally killed two Coloradans,” a message in the ad says.

“With John Hickenlooper as governor ... is your family safe?” the ad goes on to ask.

After an onslaught of criticism, the Beauprez team edited the ad late Thursday to remove references to Clements’ murder. The old ad has been removed from YouTube.

“While it is a legitimate issue to raise concerns about the administration’s failure to reform parole, out of respect to the spouse of a victim of parolee violence, we have removed that specific line from our ad,” the campaign said in a statement.

Clements was assassinated by Ebel in March 2013. Ebel spent time in solitary confinement before his release. He was shot to death by authorities after a high-speed chase in Texas later in March. Ironically, Clements had been making solitary reform a focus of his work.

Ebel walked out of prison four years early because of a clerical error. Hickenlooper ordered a 10-year statewide audit of thousands of records after the incident.

The error has been a focal point for Beauprez at debates and on the campaign trail, which has played into a larger narrative on public safety.

At a debate in Pueblo on Oct. 2, it appeared Beauprez referenced Lisa Clements on what would have been Tom Clements’ 60th birthday.

“What do you have to say to women who are widows who have orphans because of parolees you have let out of state corrections, directly solitary confinement?” Beauprez asked Hickenlooper to loud admonishment by the rowdy audience.

Sources close to Hickenlooper said the birthday reference greatly hurt Lisa Clements, though Beauprez was unaware of the significance of the day.

Hickenlooper turned the messaging around on his opponent during the debate, calling Beauprez “reprehensible.”

“I have spent a lot of time with Lisa Clements and her children, they got married in the governor’s mansion, they understand what they were doing. Tom Clements was part of that reform, and for you to make his murder part of a political gambit is reprehensible,” Hickenlooper responded.

In her letter on Thursday, Lisa Clements said the Beauprez attacks are making it difficult for her family to move on.

“Every time you do, you re-open the wounds that our family continues to suffer from,” she wrote. “We have not asked you to defend or publicize our experience, and we are not interested in accepting the support of anyone who chooses to do so with the expectation of something in return.”

Beauprez held a news conference Thursday with two Republican district attorneys in which he continued to attack Hickenlooper on public safety.

In addition to the clerical error that resulted in Ebel’s early release, Beauprez also criticized the governor for signing legislation that allows inmates to earn time toward release even while in solitary confinement.

The former congressman is also lambasting the governor’s administration for policy that allows leisure time for death row inmates.

A reoccurring theme for Beauprez has also been to pummel Hickenlooper for granting a temporary reprieve from execution for convicted killer Nathan Dunlap.

“It’s about a pattern that has gone on for too long in Colorado,” Beauprez said. “Violent criminals ... being released into our neighborhoods with nobody really knowing it.”

pmarcus@durangoherald.com



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