Colo. inmate records to get audit after suspect’s release

DENVER — Gov. John Hickenlooper on Thursday announced an audit to ensure the state’s prisoners are serving their correct sentences, two weeks after a parolee who was mistakenly released four years early was identified as a suspect in the killing of Colorado’s prisons chief.

The announcement came as authorities said they were looking for two other members of Evan Ebel’s white supremacist prison gang. Authorities said the two men were not suspects but “persons of interest” in Tom Clements’ death. Investigators are trying to determine whether Clements’ killing was an isolated attack or done at the direction of top members of the 211 Crew.

Amid that backdrop, state officials announced the audit and a review of state parole procedures by the National Institute

Ebel

Clements of Corrections. Ebel had slipped his ankle bracelet five days before the Clements killing, but authorities did not issue a warrant for his arrest on parole violations until the following day.

During that time, police believe Ebel also was involved in the slaying of Nathan Leon, a pizza deliveryman and father of three, in Denver.

Ebel was sentenced to a combined eight years in prison for a series of assault and menacing convictions in 2005. He was convicted of assaulting a prison guard in 2008, but a clerical error led his new four-year sentence to be recorded as running simultaneously to his others, rather than to start after they finished. As a result, he was released Jan. 28.

Meanwhile, the announcement Wednesday night that authorities are looking for two other 211 gang members was the first official indication of a possible tie to the gang.

James Lohr, 47, and Thomas Guolee, 31, aren’t being called suspects in Clements’ killing, but are considered persons of interest. Their names surfaced during the investigation, El Paso County sheriff’s Lt. Jeff Kramer said. He wouldn’t elaborate.