Peo v. Dent

22CA1266 Peo v Dent 07-03-2025

COLORADO COURT OF APPEALS

Court of Appeals No. 22CA1266
Arapahoe County District Court No. 21CR268
Honorable Elizabeth Weishaupl, Judge

The People of the State of Colorado,

Plaintiff-Appellee,

v.

Phillip Michael Dent,

Defendant-Appellant.

JUDGMENT REVERSED AND CASE
REMANDED WITH DIRECTIONS

Division V
Opinion by JUDGE GROVE
Welling and Johnson, JJ., concur

NOT PUBLISHED PURSUANT TO C.A.R. 35(e)
Announced July 3, 2025

Philip J. Weiser, Attorney General, Trina K. Kissel, Senior Assistant Attorney
General and Assistant Solicitor General, Denver, Colorado, for Plaintiff-Appellee

Megan A. Ring, Colorado State Public Defender, Rachel Z. Geiman, Deputy
State Public Defender, Denver, Colorado, for Defendant-Appellant
¶1 Defendant, Phillip Michael Dent, appeals the judgment of

conviction entered upon a jury verdict finding him guilty of

aggravated motor vehicle theft and arson. We reverse and remand

for further proceedings consistent with this opinion.

I. Background

¶2 The prosecution presented evidence from which the jury could

reasonably find the following facts.

¶3 On January 28, 2021, Dent stole Cindy Turco’s minivan while

she was at an automatic car wash in Littleton. Security footage

showed a man later identified as Dent approach Turco’s driver side

door while the car wash was running and demand that she get out.

Turco resisted, and Dent tried to pull her out of the van, grabbing

her by the neck and biting her wrist in the process. He eventually

succeeded, and after “throwing [Turco] out of the car,” Dent got in

and drove away.

¶4 Three days later, Turco’s van was found destroyed in a parking

lot in Lakewood with its original South Dakota plates removed.

Investigators determined it had been intentionally set on fire.

¶5 A police detective issued a media bulletin asking for the

public’s help in identifying the carjacking suspect. A former

1
roommate of Dent’s called the detective and suggested Dent was

responsible. She provided the detective with incriminating text

messages from Dent in which he admitted to stealing a vehicle of

the same make and model as Turco’s at a car wash.

¶6 To locate Dent, police requested a search warrant for records

maintained by his wireless phone service provider. A district court

judge approved the warrant application, and T-Mobile USA (T-

Mobile) subsequently turned over records within the scope of the

warrant, including, among other things, GPS locations, text

messages, and call data collected during the few weeks before and

after the carjacking. Some of the records implicated Dent in the

charged offenses.

¶7 Three months after the motions deadline had passed, and

after the final pretrial conference, Dent filed a motion to suppress

the records produced by T-Mobile pursuant to the search warrant.

As relevant here, he argued that the warrant was overbroad and

that “no probable cause was established to believe that any criminal

offense occurred and/or that any material information would be

produced from records” generated in the few weeks before the

offense. In its response, the prosecution maintained that the

2
warrant was valid but, even if it was not, that the good faith

exception to the exclusionary rule applied. The court addressed the

motion from the bench on the morning of the first day of trial.

Without taking evidence, the court ruled that the warrant

established probable cause for the search and was sufficiently

particular. In the alternative, the court found that the good faith

exception to the exclusionary rule would apply in the event that the

warrant was deemed invalid.

¶8 At trial, Dent admitted that he had committed robbery and

third degree assault, and he does not appeal those convictions (or

his conviction on a burglary charge arising from events after the

theft of the van). He does, however, challenge his convictions for

aggravated motor vehicle theft and second degree arson, arguing

that the court erroneously denied the suppression motion and

committed several evidentiary errors at trial. He also challenges

$98.35 of the $2,125.33 that the trial court awarded in restitution.

¶9 We conclude that the trial court reversibly erred by admitting

records provided by T-Mobile without establishing either that they

were machine generated (and thus not hearsay) or that they

qualified as business records (and were thus admissible under CRE

3
803(6)). However, because it will likely arise in the event of a

retrial, we first consider Dent’s challenge to the trial court’s

suppression ruling. Finally, because we leave three of Dent’s

convictions undisturbed, we address his challenge to the court’s

restitution award. We do not reach Dent’s remaining evidentiary

arguments because it is unclear whether they will arise again in the

event that he is retried.

II. Suppression Motion

¶ 10 Dent contends that the trial court erroneously denied his

motion to suppress the evidence obtained from the T-Mobile search

warrant because the warrant was overbroad and lacked probable

cause. We disagree.

A. Standard of Review

¶ 11 “A trial court’s ruling on a motion to suppress presents a

mixed question of fact and law.” Pettigrew v. People, 2022 CO 2,

¶ 49. “We therefore ‘defer to the trial court’s findings of fact that

are supported by the record, but we assess the legal effect of those

facts de novo.’” Id. (quoting People v. Hyde, 2017 CO 24, ¶ 9). We

also review de novo whether a “warrant and supporting affidavit

4
complied with the Fourth Amendment’s particularity requirement.”

Id.

¶ 12 “We review preserved trial errors of constitutional dimension,

including the admission of evidence obtained in violation of the

Fourth Amendment, for constitutional harmless error.” Id. at ¶ 50.

“Under this standard, reversal is required unless the reviewing

court can conclude that the error was harmless beyond a

reasonable doubt.” Id. “In other words, we will reverse if ‘there is a

reasonable possibility that the [error] might have contributed to the

conviction.’” Id. (alteration in original) (quoting Hagos v. People,

2012 CO 63, ¶ 11).

B. Applicable Law

¶ 13 “The Fourth Amendment to the United States Constitution . . .

prohibit[s] the issuance of a search warrant except upon probable

cause supported by oath or affirmation particularly describing the

place to be searched and the things to be seized.” People v.

Rodriguez-Ortiz, 2025 COA 61, ¶ 21. “To prevent general,

exploratory searches, the Fourth Amendment requires ‘a “particular

description” of the things to be seized.’” People v. Coke, 2020 CO

28, ¶ 34 (quoting Andresen v. Maryland, 427 U.S. 463, 480 (1976)).

5
Courts consider “whether the description in a warrant is sufficiently

particular that it enables the executing officer to reasonably

ascertain and identify the things authorized to be seized.” People v.

Roccaforte, 919 P.2d 799, 803 (Colo. 1996). Likewise, to establish

probable cause, a warrant affidavit must “allege facts sufficient to

cause a reasonably cautious person to believe that evidence of

criminal activity” exists in the place to be searched. People v.

Omwanda, 2014 COA 128, ¶ 21. We review the totality of

circumstances to determine whether probable cause exists. People

v. Miller, 75 P.3d 1108, 1113 (Colo. 2003). “This analysis does not

lend itself to mathematical certainties or bright line rules; rather, it

involves a practical, common-sense determination whether a fair

probability exists that a search of a particular place will reveal

contraband or other evidence of criminal activity.” Id.

C. Particularity

¶ 14 Dent contends that the T-Mobile warrant was overbroad and

thus invalid because the first of its twenty paragraphs ordered

T-Mobile to “provide any and all records for the subject telephone.”

Although Dent acknowledges that the remaining paragraphs in the

affidavit made specific, time-constrained demands for certain

6
categories of information, he nonetheless asserts that the all-

encompassing language in the first paragraph could be used to give

law enforcement “virtually unfettered” access to Dent’s phone

records, Coke, ¶ 36, thereby turning the warrant into an

impermissible “general warrant[],” id. at ¶ 34 (quoting Andresen,

427 U.S. at 480).

¶ 15 The People acknowledge the breadth of the warrant’s first

paragraph but maintain that it should not be “read in isolation”

because it “is followed by nineteen more paragraphs of highly

specific, often technical requests that are constrained by time and

limited in scope by the probable cause that supported them” and

expressly incorporates the accompanying affidavit. Thus, the

People argue, when everything is read together in “a practical,

common sense fashion,” Roccaforte, 919 P.2d at 804, the first

paragraph should not be interpreted as authorizing the “search and

seizure of every document T-Mobile had for Dent’s phone number.”

Instead, “[i]t is apparent that the first paragraph was intended to

request the records that were spelled out in the detailed paragraphs

that followed.”

7
¶ 16 “The underlying purpose to be accomplished by the

particularity requirement is to inform the executing officers of the

limitations on the search and to inform the person subjected to the

search what items the officers executing the warrant can seize.”

People v. Slusher, 844 P.2d 1222, 1227 (Colo. App. 1992). Here,

notwithstanding the remainder of the warrant and the context

provided by the accompanying affidavit, the plain language of the

warrant’s first paragraph placed no limitations, whether temporal or

otherwise, on the data that T-Mobile was required to provide. See

Rodriguez-Ortiz, ¶ 18 (holding that the search warrant for records

held by a wireless provider was not overbroad, in part because “the

warrant limited the search to a six-month time period in which all

the crimes under investigation occurred”). As a result, and

although adopting such a broad interpretation would render the

warrant’s more specific requests superfluous, the officer who

presented the warrant to T-Mobile could have relied on its plain

language to demand every record associated with Dent’s account.

See Slusher, 844 P.2d at 1227.

¶ 17 Accordingly, the search warrant’s demand for the production

of “any and all records for the subject telephone and telephone

8
number” rendered it overbroad and insufficiently particular to

withstand constitutional scrutiny. Even if casting a dragnet for

records held by T-Mobile, as Dent’s wireless carrier, may have been

somewhat narrower than an unbounded collection of data held on

the phone itself, the scope of the records requested still allows for a

general rummaging through Dent’s personal information. See Coke,

¶ 34 (“‘[G]eneral warrants,’ which permit ‘a general, exploratory

rummaging in a person’s belongings,’ are prohibited.” (quoting

Andresen, 427 U.S. at 480)). We therefore conclude that the search

warrant violated the Fourth Amendment’s particularity

requirement.

D. Probable Cause

¶ 18 We reach the opposite conclusion with respect to probable

cause. Dent argues that those sections of the warrant that did

identify specific records (as opposed to the general search

authorized by the first paragraph) did not “establish probable cause

for all of the records requested.” But the officer’s goal in requesting

the warrant was to use it as a tool to help find Dent in

circumstances where police feared that his “criminal behavior [was]

escalating.” As the officer attested, the requested information was

9
“necessary and relevant to the investigation, and [would] assist in

locating the subject.”

¶ 19 “[I]t is reasonable, within the terms of the Fourth Amendment,

to conduct otherwise permissible searches for the purpose of

obtaining evidence which would aid in apprehending and convicting

criminals.” Warden v. Hayden, 387 U.S. 294, 306 (1967). To that

end, courts have regularly approved of warrants intended to collect

data held by wireless service providers that could aid in the

apprehension of fugitive suspects. See, e.g., United States v. Artis,

919 F.3d 1123, 1134 (9th Cir. 2019) (affirming validity of warrant

for cell phone data used to track down fugitive); United States v.

Patrick, 842 F.3d 540, 542 (7th Cir. 2016) (“Police were entitled to

use a warrant to obtain data [from a fugitive’s cell phone] that

would help them track down [the fugitive’s] location.”); In re

Smartphone Geolocation Data Application, 977 F. Supp. 2d 129, 137

(E.D.N.Y. 2013) (“[When] the Government demonstrates probable

cause to believe that prospective geolocation data will aid in the

apprehension of a defendant, a court may issue a search warrant to

authorize access to such data.”).

10
¶ 20 Consistent with these authorities, the affidavit underlying the

search warrant here “allege[d] sufficient facts to warrant a person of

reasonable caution to believe,” Miller, 75 P.3d at 1112, that the data

collected would assist in locating Dent.

E. Good Faith Exception

¶ 21 Having determined that the search warrant was supported by

probable cause but was nonetheless overbroad, we turn next to

whether suppression was warranted. The trial court concluded that

it was not, ruling in the alternative that the good faith exception to

the exclusionary rule would apply even if the warrant was

constitutionally infirm. We agree with that determination.

¶ 22 The usual remedy for an invalid warrant is the suppression of

all evidence seized pursuant to the warrant. Roccaforte, 919 P.2d at

802. In United States v. Leon, 468 U.S. 897, 922 (1984), however,

the Supreme Court carved out an exception to the exclusionary

rule, holding that evidence obtained in violation of the Fourth

Amendment should not be suppressed in circumstances where the

evidence was obtained by officers acting in objectively reasonable

reliance on a warrant issued by a detached and neutral magistrate,

even if that warrant was later determined to be invalid. People v.

11
Gutierrez, 222 P.3d 925, 941 (Colo. 2009); see also § 16-3-308(4)(a),

C.R.S. 2024 (providing that evidence that would otherwise be

excluded as the result of an invalid warrant should be admitted

when the officer’s conduct was pursuant to a “reasonable, good

faith belief that [the warrant] was proper”). There are only four

circumstances that will render an officer’s reliance on a warrant

unreasonable:

(1) where the issuing magistrate was misled by
a known or recklessly made falsehood;
(2) where the issuing magistrate wholly
abandoned the judicial role; (3) where the
warrant is so facially deficient that the officer
cannot reasonably determine the particular
place to be searched or things to be seized; or
(4) where the warrant is based on an affidavit
so lacking in indicia of probable cause as to
render official belief in its existence entirely
unreasonable.

Miller, 75 P.3d at 1114; see also People v. Seymour, 2023 CO 53,

¶ 64. Dent does not argue that the officer who requested the search

warrant made any misleading statements, nor does he suggest that

the issuing magistrate abandoned the judicial role when approving

the warrant application. Moreover, we have already determined

that the affidavit adequately set forth probable cause. That leaves

us with only the third category — whether the warrant was “so

12
facially deficient . . . in failing to particularize the place to be

searched or the things to be seized . . . that the executing officers

c[ould not] reasonably presume it to be valid.” Leon, 468 U.S. at

923. For the reasons below, we conclude the overbroad statement

in the warrant’s first paragraph did not render it so facially deficient

as to preclude the application of the good faith exception.

¶ 23 First, at the time that the warrant was issued, no Colorado

case had held that a search warrant issued to a cell phone provider

was “subject to the same ‘special protections applicable to cell

phone searches.’” Rodriguez-Ortiz, ¶ 116 (Schock, J., specially

concurring) (quoting People v. Davis, 2019 CO 24, ¶ 19). Without

such precedent, we cannot say a reasonable officer would be

expected to conclude “that a warrant for cell records held by a third

party would be subject to the same particularity standard as a

warrant for the defendant’s cell phone itself.” Id. (Schock, J.,

specially concurring).

¶ 24 Second, although the “any and all” statement in the warrant’s

first paragraph could have been used to force a general search of

the records held by T-Mobile, nothing in the record suggests that a

general search actually occurred. To the contrary, by all accounts,

13
it appears that T-Mobile’s compliance with the warrant was guided

by the nineteen paragraphs that detailed the information sought

and placed reasonable temporal limits on the scope of the data

collection. The absence of any suggestion that the officer in fact

used the warrant to demand more information or received more

information than what was covered by the specific categories listed

supports an inference that the officer procured and executed it in

good faith.

¶ 25 Third, the search warrant was accompanied by an extensive

affidavit that “set forth in detail the crimes under investigation,

including the date, location, and victim,” and the “officer who

signed that affidavit was the same officer who conducted the search

of the cell records.” Id. at ¶ 118 (Schock, J., specially concurring)

(“Th[e] officer therefore could have reasonably understood the

warrant to be read together with the affidavit as limiting the search

to evidence of the crimes under investigation . . . .”). This fact,

along with the express incorporation of the affidavit into the

warrant, reduced the likelihood that the “any and all” language

would be used to force T-Mobile to collect and disclose records that

14
fell outside the specific requests outlined in the warrant’s nineteen

remaining paragraphs.

¶ 26 Given all this, we conclude that the deterrent purpose of the

exclusionary rule would not be served by excluding the evidence

collected from the overbroad search warrant. See People v. Altman,

960 P.2d 1164, 1168 (Colo. 1998) (holding that because the goal of

the exclusionary rule is to deter improper police conduct, it should

not be applied in cases where the deterrence purpose is not served).

The trial court therefore appropriately applied the good faith

exception and denied Dent’s motion to suppress.

III. Text Messages

¶ 27 Dent contends that the trial court erred by overruling his

hearsay and confrontation objections to the admission of the

records of seven text messages that T-Mobile turned over in

response to the search warrant. We agree.

A. Standard of Review

¶ 28 We review a trial court’s evidentiary rulings for an abuse of

discretion. People v. Dominguez, 2019 COA 78, ¶ 13. A trial court

abuses its discretion when its ruling is manifestly arbitrary,

unreasonable, or unfair or is contrary to law. Id. We review de

15
novo a trial court’s decision on whether statements are hearsay.

People v. Hamilton, 2019 COA 101, ¶ 12.

¶ 29 Dent preserved his hearsay objection to the records in

question. We therefore review the trial court’s ruling on that issue

for harmless error. See People v. Rodriguez, 2022 COA 11, ¶ 13.

Because we conclude that reversal is required based on the

improper admission of the records under the rules of evidence, we

need not reach Dent’s alternative contention that the admission of

the records also violated his right to confront the witnesses against

him.

B. Applicable Law

¶ 30 Hearsay evidence is not admissible except as provided by the

Colorado Rules of Evidence or other rules or statutes. CRE 802.

Hearsay is “a statement other than one made by the declarant while

testifying at the trial or hearing, offered in evidence to prove the

truth of the matter asserted.” CRE 801(c). Our rules of evidence

recognize exceptions that allow admission of hearsay for certain

inherently reliable out-of-court statements, such as business

records that meet certain criteria. People v. N.T.B., 2019 COA 150,

¶ 24; see also CRE 803. Where evidence contains multiple layers of

16
possible hearsay, the trial court must analyze each layer separately

to determine whether any exceptions apply. People v. Phillips, 2012

COA 176, ¶ 101; see also CRE 805.

¶ 31 The evidentiary rules governing out-of-court statements

exclude some out-of-court statements from the definition of

hearsay. As relevant here, an out-of-court statement made by a

criminal defendant, when offered by the prosecution, is an

admission by a party-opponent and, therefore, is not hearsay. See

CRE 801(d)(2); People v. Crespi, 155 P.3d 570, 575 (Colo. App.

2006). Similarly, “[i]nformation automatically generated by

machines is not hearsay because no ‘person’ or ‘declarant’ made a

‘statement’ within the meaning of CRE 801.” People v. Abad, 2021

COA 6, ¶ 54.

C. Additional Facts

¶ 32 The seven text messages were produced in response to the

T-Mobile warrant and were sent from Dent’s phone to unidentified

recipients. In the three of the messages, the sender identified

himself as “Phil.” In the other four messages the sender wrote,

among other things, that he “got this car new plates . . . and wiped

17
it down really well for prints,” that he had “torched” the van, and

that he “had to get rid of all evidence.”

¶ 33 Two detectives testified on behalf of the prosecution regarding

the text messages. The first, Detective Robert Shiller, requested the

T-Mobile search warrant and signed the accompanying affidavit.

The second, Detective Adam Alderson, converted the data files that

T-Mobile provided into a more readable spreadsheet format. The

prosecution did not present any testimony from T-Mobile explaining

how the data files were created, and the prosecution did not argue

that the data files qualified for admission under the hearsay

exception for business records outlined in CRE 803(6).

¶ 34 Dent objected to the admission of the messages on hearsay

and confrontation grounds.1 Defense counsel pointed out that

there were two layers of potential hearsay — Dent’s statements (i.e.,

the words in the text messages) and the records provided by T-

Mobile that contained those statements (i.e., the data file that

Alderson converted into a spreadsheet). As relevant here, the

1 Defense counsel also argued that the records had not been

properly authenticated and that they should be excluded due to a
discovery violation, but Dent does not reassert these arguments on
appeal.

18
prosecution responded that the messages themselves were not

hearsay because they were Dent’s statements, and thus admissions

of a party-opponent under CRE 801(d)(2), and that, as a result, it

was unnecessary to satisfy the business records exception to the

hearsay rule for the spreadsheets.

¶ 35 The trial court overruled Dent’s objections. After

acknowledging that the prosecution had not attempted to admit the

spreadsheets as records of regularly conducted business activity

under CRE 803(6), it concluded that the data provided by T-Mobile

was a “digital echo” of the statements that Dent made in the

messages themselves. As a result, the court ruled, the prosecution

did not need to provide any further evidence establishing how

T-Mobile compiled and transmitted the data provided in response to

the search warrant.

D. Analysis

¶ 36 Testimony about Dent’s text messages involved at least two

layers of potential hearsay: (1) the records provided by T-Mobile and

(2) the contents of any statements in those records. Dent appears

to concede that the text messages themselves were not hearsay

because they were statements of a party-opponent. See CRE

19
801(d)(2). But he contends that the record does not support the

trial court’s decision to admit the underlying records created by

T-Mobile, which conveyed that Dent “sent those messages to certain

phone numbers at certain dates and times.”

¶ 37 As we have already discussed, the prosecution did not offer

any evidence at trial establishing how T-Mobile compiled or

transmitted the records that it provided in response to the search

warrant, instead arguing that the court need not separately apply

the hearsay rules to the T-Mobile records because they contained

only Dent’s nonhearsay statements. On appeal, the People

acknowledge that the T-Mobile records constituted a second level of

potential hearsay but argue that they fell outside of the hearsay

rule because they were machine generated and thus not the

statements of a “person,” see Abad, ¶ 54, and did not “contain

human analysis, opinion, observation, or interpretation.”

¶ 38 It is certainly possible that the records provided by T-Mobile

were generated by the internal operations of a computer. As the

proponent of the evidence, however, the prosecution had the

burden of establishing that the records were machine generated

without human input or interpretation. See Hamilton, ¶¶ 24-26;

20
N.T.B., ¶ 37; see also People v. Vanderpauye, 2023 CO 42, ¶ 25.

The prosecution did not make that showing — indeed, it did not

offer any evidence at all about the mechanism that T-Mobile used to

generate the records. True, Shiller testified that the raw data

provided by T-Mobile arrives “in a format that is unintelligible to the

average eye,” but that statement does not support the trial court’s

subsequent conclusion that the reason “there was nobody who

could testify as to the inputting of that data” was “because it’s not

done by a person” and, instead, is “just done by a computer.” Even

if the raw data appeared to be machine generated, and even if it

appeared to be generally consistent with call logs and similar types

of records properly admitted in other cases, the evidence before the

trial court was simply not sufficient to support a conclusion as to

how the records came to be. To be sure, “[h]uman agency [was] at

some level necessarily involved . . . and often interpretation is laced

throughout reading the machine’s response.” 2 Kenneth S. Broun

et al., McCormick on Evidence § 249, Westlaw (Robert P. Mosteller

ed., 9th ed. database updated Feb. 2025).

¶ 39 Without some information from the source of the records

about how they were compiled, the trial court was not in a position

21
to determine that they were machine generated and thus outside

the scope of the hearsay rule. As a result, we conclude that the

court erred by admitting the T-Mobile records that contained the

seven text messages described by Shiller and Alderson. Given the

substantially inculpatory content of the messages, we accept the

People’s concession that the erroneous admission of the T-Mobile

records could not have been harmless with respect to the charges of

aggravated motor vehicle theft and arson.

IV. Restitution

¶ 40 Lastly, Dent contends the district court erroneously awarded

$98.35 in restitution for Turco and her husband’s stay at a Holiday

Inn shortly after the carjacking.2 We are not persuaded.

A. Additional Facts

¶ 41 Prior to the carjacking, in early January, Turco sold her

Colorado home and was preparing to move to join her husband in

Hawaii. As she was wrapping up her affairs throughout that

2 Even though we have reversed two of Dent’s convictions arising

from the carjacking, he does not challenge his robbery conviction on
appeal. The People maintain that Turco’s hotel expense was
proximately caused by the robbery.

22
month, she stayed with her son, with friends, and at times in her

van.

¶ 42 On the day of the carjacking, Turco was planning to, and did,

stay with friends. Two days later, Turco’s husband flew in from

Hawaii to help her look for her stolen van, as well as to assist her

with the insurance claim and with law enforcement. He rented a

car and drove from the airport to meet Turco in Littleton. The two

then booked a hotel room for the night.

¶ 43 At trial, Turco explained the couple “spent the night at a hotel”

because the friends with whom she had stayed “already been

through 48 hours of carjacking” and traveling to their son’s house

would have meant a late-night drive to Loveland.

¶ 44 The trial court granted restitution for the hotel. It found the

couple’s hotel stay was proximately caused by Dent’s conduct. The

court explained:

[Turco] was living in this van going back and
forth to friends’ house and [her] son’s house,
and they were unable to go to their friends’
house or their son’s house because Mr. Dent
stole their car. So, [the couple] had to choose
whether or not to go back that night or to just
stay someplace.

23
¶ 45 Dent now argues that the court should not have awarded

restitution for the hotel stay because its reasoning was

unsupported by the facts. Turco actually did have access to a

rental car once her husband arrived. Therefore, they could have

driven to their friend’s or son’s house rather than book a hotel.

B. Applicable Law and Standard of Review

¶ 46 Convicted defendants must “make full restitution to those

harmed by their misconduct.” § 18-1.3-601(1)(b), C.R.S. 2024.

Restitution is defined as “any pecuniary loss suffered by a

victim . . . proximately caused by an offender’s conduct and that

can be reasonably calculated and recompensed in money.” § 18-

1.3-602(3)(a), C.R.S. 2024. Proximate cause means a cause that in

natural and probable sequence produced the claimed injury and

without which the claimed injury would not have been sustained.

People v. Perez, 2017 COA 52M, ¶ 9. Thus, “[u]nlawful conduct that

is broken by an independent intervening cause cannot be the

proximate cause of injury to another.” Martinez v. People, 2024 CO

6M, ¶ 13 (quoting People v. Stewart, 55 P.3d 107, 116 (Colo. 2002)).

But “[t]o qualify as an intervening cause, an event must be

unforeseeable and one in which the accused does not participate.”

24
Id. (quoting Stewart, 55 P.3d at 121). The prosecution bears the

burden of proving, by a preponderance of the evidence, both the

amount of restitution owed and that the victim’s losses were

proximately caused by the defendant. Perez, ¶ 10.

¶ 47 Whether there was sufficient evidence to support a restitution

award is a matter we review de novo. People v. Stone, 2020 COA 24,

¶ 7. In undertaking such review, we ask “whether the evidence,

both direct and circumstantial, when viewed as a whole and in the

light most favorable to the prosecution, establishes by a

preponderance of the evidence that the defendant caused that

amount of loss.” Id. (quoting People v. Barbre, 2018 COA 123,

¶ 25). Restitution is mandatory when proximate cause is

established. Martinez, ¶ 17. However, because proximate cause is

a factually intensive inquiry, we review the district court’s

determination of proximate cause in a restitution proceeding for

clear error. Id. at ¶ 32.

C. Analysis

¶ 48 The record before us supports the district court’s

determination of foreseeability and proximate cause. Turco’s car

had South Dakota plates when Dent stole it, supporting an

25
inference that it was foreseeable that, if her van was stolen, she

would not have local accommodations. See id. at ¶ 34. That

inference is further buoyed by Turco’s testimony that, while

preparing for her move, she either stayed with friends, with her son,

or in her van. And while it may have been true that Turco could

have driven the rental car to her son’s or friend’s house when her

husband came into town, the robbery still reduced Turco’s options

for accommodations. In other words, if Dent had not stolen the

van, Turco would have had no need to look elsewhere for a place to

stay because she could have slept in the van rather than at her

friend’s or son’s houses. Given this record support, we must affirm

the restitution award.

V. Disposition

¶ 49 We reverse Dent’s convictions or aggravated motor vehicle

theft and arson. We leave undisturbed his convictions for robbery,

burglary, and third degree assault and affirm the restitution award.

The case is remanded to the trial court for further proceedings

consistent with this opinion.

JUDGE WELLING and JUDGE JOHNSON concur.

26