By Logan Smith
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BRUSH, Colorado (KCNC) — A Brush resident’s nightmare began with a knock on his door last January. When the Colorado man answered, a man wearing a chest-mounted video camera accused him of soliciting sex from a 13-year-old girl online.
The man said, “Let me tell you who I am,” and boasted that he had made 471 “catches” which led to 251 arrests of people trying to have sex with children.
“No, I do not want to meet anybody,” Lelan Donelson replied. “I’m 78 years old.”
The man wearing recording device responded: “But why did you tell her you wanted to meet her?”
“No,” Donelson said, “this girl called me and notified me. She’s on the internet. And I told her, ‘You’re not 13 years old, or you shouldn’t be on this site.'”
The man said Donelson had received an intimate video from the girl. Donelson denied it.
“Honest to God, I did not,” Donelson said. “Do you want to see my phone?”
The denials had no effect and the confrontation continued. Donelson eventually called police to his home. He gave his phone to the officers.
Three months later, the Brush Police Department posted Donelson’s photo on its Facebook page and announced he had been arrested for possession of images of child sexual abuse. The department’s investigators charged him with 140 counts of sexual exploitation of a child, all felonies.
“Finally! This creep has been stopped!” replied one person in the comments section.
“Horrifying and disgusting,” wrote another.
“He is out on bail please watch your children everyone”
“Put him away.”
“I got a rope if you need one. He shouldn’t be allowed to live”
In a stunning turn of events, all the charges against Donelson were dropped last Thursday.
Despite that, his lawyer says Donelson continues to suffer from negative publicity. The Brush Police Department’s Facebook posts about his investigation and arrest have not been taken down. And the video of the January encounter at his home, recorded and published by a group called the Colorado Ped Patrol, a citizen-led nonprofit that tries to expose pedophiles, remain online.
“The experience was terrible,” Donelson told CBS Colorado. “The charges were bogus. It was ridiculous.”
The police department says it has no regrets pursuing those charges. The seriousness of the allegations, Chief Brandon Flecksteiner explained in an email, warranted investigation and always will, especially when credible evidence — referred to as probable cause for an arrest — is present.
“Similar investigations are increasing nationwide. At a recent seminar, we were advised that more than 19 million tips related to child sexual abuse material have been reported across the United States this year alone. These numbers underscore the seriousness of this issue,” Flecksteiner stated in the email. “Regardless of the outcome in this matter, the Brush Police Department remains committed to thoroughly investigating these cases and pursuing accountability for individuals who create, distribute, or possess material that exploits children. Protecting victims and preventing further harm will continue to be a priority for our agency.”
The case unraveled after police presented it to prosecutors at the 13th Judicial District Attorneys Office. Initial actions by prosecutors were taken based on the descriptions of evidence in the police department’s affidavit and reports, District Attorney Travis Sides told CBS Colorado. It’s not uncommon for prosecutors to begin a prosecution “without having the benefit of full disclosure,” or having examined all of the case’s evidence firsthand, Sides said.
“It’s not unusual to go back and amend the charges,” Sides said. “Our prosecutors, sometimes we charge more, sometimes we charge less. Sometimes none.”
Based on the written reports from the police investigation, prosecutors chiseled the charges against Donelson down from the police’s 140 counts to 15.
But when it came time to formally charge Donelson in court, prosecutors balked at what they themselves found.
The images in Donelson’s phone “just weren’t child porn,” Sides said.
Once in prosecutor’s hands, the images collected from Donelson’s phone were sent to a database at the National Center for Missing and Exploited Children, according to Sides. That database has an archive of such images and confirms whether they are known images of child sexual assault that are being repeatedly distributed. The images from Donelson’s phone, Sides said, did not match anything in the national database.
“It looked like adults trying to appear as minors. We basically couldn’t prove these images were child porn.”
It was, in other words, a losing case.
Sides acknowledged that Donelson was “forthcoming,” as he put it, and offered his phone to be searched.
That’s only one of the reasons Donelson’s attorney feels his client’s case should have been considered with more care.
“My client called the police. He was nothing but cooperative,” Justie Nicol told CBS Colorado. “He went to police because he was being harassed. Lelan was scared for his safety.”
Nicol says Donelson gave that first phone to police officers that January day. He then purchased a used cellphone on eBay to replace it. Unfortunately, the content on the phone wasn’t deleted; no factory reset had been performed. Donelson, an older man with limited technological prowess and no internet in his home, inherited problems from the phone’s previous owner, she said. Pop-up ads came up which he couldn’t control.
After receiving no help from his mobile service provider, Donelson went to Brush PD for help, Nicol said.
That’s when he was arrested.
“Brush PD put his name and address on Facebook,” Nicol said. “He received death threats. His house was vandalized. He’s been vilified in his hometown. His family changed its name. Dentists have refused to treat him,” as have doctors.
“They ruined someone’s life, basically.”
Nicol said she took on the case after Donelson’s arrest. She immediately noticed that Brush investigators dug into the cellphone’s evidence themselves. They did not, she said, send it to FBI experts in the metro area.
Prosecutors did. They found two files, Nicol said, that might be considered child porn. One file contained no nudity. More importantly, all the files were in a cache and had never been opened.
“It wasn’t done right from the beginning. I have no doubt about my client’s innocence,” Nicol said of Donelson. “He certainly didn’t transmit, create or peddle any images or media. At all.
“There’s a little more diligence that needs to go into (these investigations),” Nicol continued. “Most child porn cases, we’re talking tens of thousands of files. There are images known to the FBI that are so easy to track. They have these things tied in a bow so nicely.”
Nicol also described the Colorado Ped Patrol’s livestreamed encounter with Donelson in front of his home in January as “entrapment.”
“Frankly, Colorado Ped Patrol does more harm than good in cases like this.”
Police have questioned the tactics of the Colorado Ped Patrol’s founder, Tommy Fellows, before. In 2021, a metro area commander told CBS Colorado, “I think it’s a bad idea. I think a citizen vigilante group is fraught with peril.”
Brush PD Chief Flecksteiner expressed no such misgivings.
“This investigation was our first interaction with Colorado Ped Patrol, and we appreciate their willingness to bring information forward,” he stated. “We understand their purpose, and when criminal activity is reported within the City of Brush, we will review and investigate as appropriate.”
CBS Colorado left several messages on phones registered to Tommy Fellows, the founder of Colorado Ped Patrol. No calls were returned.
Donelson is considering civil action in the future, his attorney Nicol said. She will refer him to a different attorney or firm in that specialty if he decides to. But right now, there are more urgent things on his mind.
“Trying to rebuild the relationships with his family is where we’re at right now.”
She said Donelson hopes to get his phones back soon from Brush PD’s evidence storage. When he does, she will perform the factory reset herself.
“Or get him a new one.”
This story was provided to CNN Wire by an affiliate and does not contain original CNN reporting.
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