 before I get started on talking in specifics about the charges that we filed today, I do want to thank a couple of people that are here with us. One is our chief of police for Colorado Springs Police Department, Adrian Vasquez and then Matt Fodor from FBI. Both of those agencies have worked tirelessly to get us to this point today and will continue to work tirelessly as this case progresses. It is very typical in a high level case like this that the investigation will continue for the entirety of the case as we're in court. Because of that, we're going to be very careful about what we share and don't share in these sorts of settings. The reason for that is we want to protect our ability to prosecute this case to the fullest extent of our ability to do so. So bear with us as we talk about some of these things. Obviously today we filed formal charges, 305 total counts of charges, including multiple counts of murder in the first degree under two different theories, both with intent and deliberation of five counts of that version of murder and then five counts of extreme indifference murder. Both of those potential sentences are life in prison without parole, meaning that if somebody is convicted of those offenses, they will serve the remainder of their life in prison without breathing free air again. We also charged a number of attempted murders, both for intent and deliberation and extreme indifference as well. Those are less than life in prison without parole, but they do carry with them up to a very significant period of time in prison, including up to 48 years for each of those. We do have the ability to ask for at some point down the road for consecutive sentencing, and I'm talking generally speaking here. That will be ultimately up to the facts that we present in the case and if we are able to achieve convictions in this case. I want to reiterate that charges are merely allegations. Everybody that is charged with a crime is presumed to be innocent until proven guilty beyond a reasonable doubt, and that certainly applies in this case. We are not going to talk about facts of the investigation so that we can again protect our ability to prosecute this case going forward. The next court date is a preliminary hearing slash proof evident presumption grade. What we have to present there is enough evidence to bind this case over for trial. That will be the first glimpse into some of the investigation that has occurred already in this case and some of the investigation that will occur down the road. At the conclusion of that hearing, we will be asking the judge to again bind the defendant over on the charges and also to continue to hold the defendant without bond going forward. We certainly feel that we have enough to achieve that, but ultimately that will be up to the judge. That setting will be set for February 22nd to the 24th. We will start at 8.30 in the morning and then go all day until we conclude the presentation of evidence. The typical response to that hearing will be to have an arraignment setting. Most times in most generalized cases an arraignment occurs at the conclusion of the preliminary hearing. In murder cases and certainly in murder cases of this magnitude, it is not uncommon for defense to set out arraignment to some date further down the road. At arraignment is when a defendant will enter their former plea. In almost all cases, that formal plea will be not guilty, meaning that they are going to contest the charges. We don't know what will happen in this case because that will be up to the defendant and his attorneys. From that point forward, when an arraignment occurs, that's when the speedy trial clock starts. In the state of Colorado, we have six months to get a case to trial from that arraignment date. Defendant does not have to honor the six months so they can ask for continuances. The people that protect that six month speedy trial requirement are the prosecution and the court. It's a joint responsibility from the court and from the prosecution. So oftentimes we will not be the ones asking for continuances if there are three or four people that need for continuances. So with that, I think that's pretty much everything that I want to share at this particular point. Does anybody have any questions on those specific issues that I've talked about today? DA, is there a reason, is there a message I should say you wanted to send on these 305 different counts? Well, I think the message that we sent is obviously when you file 305 counts in a case that tells the public, this community, this state and this nation that we are taking this case as serious as we possibly can, meaning that we are going to prosecute this case to the fullest extent of the law. We also have filed bias motivated charges in this case, meaning that we think that there's enough evidence to satisfy our burden on bias motivated offenses. We're not going to tolerate actions against community members based on their sexual identity, those types of things. Members of that community have been harassed, intimidated, and abused for too long. That's not going to occur in the Fort Judicial District. And so it's important that we talk about that as well. Hopefully that answer your question. Yeah, so you're asking about evidence. I'm not going to talk about that. We'll talk about evidence presentation when we get to those settings in this case. I think there are plenty of things that are obvious that have been covered in the media already. And I'm going to stop the answer at that point, because I do want to make sure that we protect our ability to prosecute this case going forward. We obviously think we have enough evidence to go forward on those charges, and I'm going to leave it at that. I would like to provide an insight into some of the motions from the defense of the list of 11 pertaining to the unstealing of the breast affidavit tomorrow. And then we're meeting with victim families just for a community to prepare what information might be included in that Let's see what's going on. Yeah, so one, I think transparency is important. Transparency always has limits on what we can and can't talk about. And I've sort of alluded to some of that stuff here today. Our ethics rules say what we can and can't say as it relates to our practice of law. And there are special responsibilities for prosecutors specifically. Oftentimes in cases, especially cases of this magnitude, arrest affidavits will be sealed so that we can protect the ability to investigate the case going forward. That's what occurred here. So when we file for an arrest warrant from police, we'll file a motion to have that sealed. We don't object to it being unsealed at the appropriate time. We also want to make sure that we communicate with victims so that they know what's in it before the general media and members of the public know. I know that in cases like this, there's a tension. There's a tension from what the community wants to know about this case. And there's a great thirst to get that information. The media wants to give that information to the public. But in order to protect our case and our ability to prosecute, we have to be very careful about how we share that information and what we share. And so there will always be that tension in place. But we're going to do our best to make sure that we're walking that line in an appropriate way in protecting our ability to hold the line on accountability here with this case. Generally it would be very initial information. Typically it's going to be much less information than than what you might expect actually. Because it's very early on in the investigation when something like that is potentially written up. So it may be not very much information or maybe less information than is already known in the public. So it's kind of case dependent. I'm trying to be careful and not say what's in this particular affidavit obviously until we have a chance to talk to the to all the family members and victims. But don't be surprised if there's actually already more information out there from other media reports than what's in that affidavit. Do you think that there could be information in there that was in some way? Yeah, I'm not going to speculate on that. Yeah, Alan, you just had a conversation with some victims' families before he came up here to speak with us. What was spoken about if you mind sharing and what was your message to them? Yeah, I'm not going to share the the private conversation that we have obviously and I know that's not what you're asking. Really answering questions about process. Oftentimes victims in cases like this have never experienced the criminal justice system before and have certainly not experienced the criminal justice system to the level that this case presents. And so we're talking about process. What's the next step? What should we expect to happen in the case? What are potential ultimate sentencing options with the charges that we filed? And then just answering questions that we can share with them about investigation and that kind of thing. I can tell you that those those people are hurting and it's obvious why they're hurting and that's not going to be diminished at all by what happens in this court system. Can you tell us what the bias motivated crime charges will do in this case? Will it add to a sentence? And the second part of that question is do you think the feds will add bias motivated crimes as well? There's no way for me to speculate as to whether the U.S. Attorney's office will eventually file charges. I can tell you that we've been working very closely. Obviously I mentioned that the FBI's worked really hard on this case. ATF has worked hard on this case. I've had plenty of conversations with U.S. Attorney but I'm not going to speculate as to whether they decide to pursue any charges on this case or not. As it relates to your the first part of your question the bias motivated crimes. The bias motivated statute was actually changed only a couple of years ago. If it was not for that change we would probably not be able to charge it in this case. And so the wording was changed to allow it to be committed in whole or in part based on bias. And there's a whole list of biases listed in that statute. The top level charge for the bias motivated crime is only an F5. That's a very low level felony in the state of Colorado. It's a probation eligible offense. So I mentioned early on at a very early press conference that our top end charges are always going to be the murder charges. Those bias motivated charges do not enhance in any way our top end sentencing which is life in prison without parole potential. So again they're very low level charges. To get to that F5 you have to have bodily injury. If there's no bodily injury but somebody who's present that's a class one misdemeanor. So those are we're talking very low level offenses here. Is this a story for your office or for your district? Look for the state's five charges or has it happened? You know obviously we've had other big cases in the state of Colorado. You know I can think of a few off the top of my head where there were multiple people that were victimized. Aurora Theater Shooter I would imagine probably had at least this many charges. I don't know the number of charges in that case. It's this certainly does not represent the most charges that have ever been filed in the state of Colorado. At least to my knowledge I think it's probably the most charges that we've ever filed in a single case on a murder case like this in the state of Colorado but there could be others out there that I'm just not thinking of right now. Yeah I'm not going to talk about that right now that gets too close to the heart of the investigation. So Colorado statute is very restrictive. That's the ceiling statute. Basically all I can say about specifically what you're asking about is that no records exist. That comes specifically from statute and I can tell you the number of that statute if I have it here. I don't have oh it's 24-72-703-2B. If a person asks about a sealed record my only response can be legally no such record exists and that's all I can say at this particular time. I can't say anything more than what I said which is no records exist. Yeah the voters in our community who are outside of the courtroom today can you describe the suspects of hearings or how they were in the courtroom today from the last time you came here? Well you know I think at the very first setting the suspects demeanor and body movements were much different than today. Obviously he walked into the courtroom today appears to have healed to some degree from the bruising that was apparent on his face at the last setting and so I would just leave it at that. Are the suspects family in the courtroom? I'm not going to get into that. I can't explain why there's so many data crimes so is that is that the number of people in the courtroom? Is it everybody who's in there to take it to cover by that? Yeah so we're actually still trying to develop exactly the number of people that were in the club and so I mentioned in the courtroom that it is somewhat likely that we amend the charges in this case that would be to potentially add more victims that we haven't yet identified and I know that Colorado Springs Police and the FBI are working on that as we speak. When that happens that number could go up but yeah generally speaking people that were inside the club would qualify for those types of charges that we've been able to verify were in the club and that could grow or it could shrink. I'm going to answer that question in a general way. It is not uncommon in cases like this that that becomes an issue. I'm not going to speculate that that will become an issue in this case it's premature. Yeah so so like I said the we charged two different theories of first-degree murder. Both of them have the same top-end punishment which is if somebody's convicted of first-degree murder it's a sentence of life in prison without the ability to parole meaning that they will spend the rest of their life in prison. The two different versions of murder that we charged is after deliberation and with intent that's what most people think about when they think of first-degree murder when somebody plans to go kill somebody. Extreme indifference murder is more generalized meaning that they don't have to have the intent to kill a specific person. They would say there's a park full of people and they go to that park and they fire a firearm indiscriminately into that park. That would be a good application an example of how extreme indifference murder is used. Like I said though they both have the same sentencing option which is life in prison without parole. We look at evidence to support our charges we have an ethical obligation to only file charges that we think we can prove in front of the court or a jury and so we feel like we have enough evidence to charge those bias motivated charges. As to that specific question it's part of the picture. So last thing I want to just point out is is that we're obviously taking this case very seriously. I've got a very strong team of prosecutors on this case. I will be on this case for the entirety of the case. I've got Reginald Short who is one of the chief deputy DA's in this office. He's prosecuted many high-level charges. He will be on this case. Jennifer Viman is also a chief deputy DA in this office and has prosecuted many high-level cases including the Patrick Frazier case that many of you are familiar with. She's on this case. We've got our top-end paralegals on this case, victim advocates, a whole team of victim advocates. We have the ability and the willingness to pursue this case to the very end and to achieve the right justice for these victims and we intend to do that again with the qualification of everybody that's charged with crimes as presumed innocent until proven guilty beyond reasonable doubt. With that I'll ask any other questions. I do have one more question. Any idea how much how long the trial will last once it begins? Do you mean the actual trial process or the this court process? It is not uncommon that these things will take some amount of time. I would be surprised if we get to an actual jury trial sometime in 2023. I suspect it'll be sometime later than that but again that's fluid and not necessarily up to the prosecution. Like I said we have six months from the arraignment date of an official not guilty plea being entered to try this case. Defense can elongate that based on their processes. We cannot. And I just want to clarify you're saying the jury trial itself not start until next year sometime. It could be even further out than that. I mean it's not uncommon. I've got a murder case now that is on year three. So all right any other questions? All right thank you all for being here. Okay with that if you would follow us on Twitter I will keep you up to speed on information that's appropriate that we can share back. I always prefer to receive requests via email and try to be as responsive as we can possibly be. So thank you. Logistically, do you want to solve two file public records requests for that affidavit that will be on the school tomorrow or will it be posted on the on the cases with insurance? That's a great question. Just follow Colorado Courts and they'll be releasing that affidavit. As you all heard that will not be released until after five o'clock tomorrow. Okay all right thank you.