News SCHIZOPHRENIA Volunteers needed PLEASE HELP US LEARN MORE ABOUT for MRI RESEARCH STUDY Adults diagnosed with schizophrenia are needed for a clinical trial to learn more about how a new medication may affect the brain. Participants will be compensated for their time. Please contact Tessa 303.724.8299 for more information COMIRB #: 16-1831 PI: Jason Tregellas, Ph.D. continued from page 6 ing guilty to a single felony drug charge and receiving a deferred judgment, so the felony charge will be wiped off his record as long as he successfully completes eighteen months of probation. (Westword spoke with this dealer, too, but after he’d pleaded guilty.) DPD spokesperson Doug Schepman would not confi rm that DelaRow was one of the offi cers on Milner’s case. “Given that the involved detectives frequently work in an undercover capacity, for their safety we do not want to identify them,” he notes. The DPD never fi nished building its case against Milner. Soon the DEA was pulling together its own investigation of the mush- room dealer, inspired by news articles in which he told reporters that he worked in the cannabis industry. During interviews, his face was obscured, but he was wearing a shirt with a cartoon fox logo. It didn’t take long for the DEA to identify him. “You could say it was happenstance or you could say it was somebody who was very careless,” Steve Kotecki, a local DEA spokesperson, says of Milner attracting the attention of two separate law enforcement agencies at around the same time. When the DPD learned that the DEA was looking into Milner, Schepman says, “we referred the fi ndings of our investigation over to them for inclusion in their case.” The language of Denver’s decriminaliza- tion ballot measure called for police to make targeting personal mushroom offenses a low priority; it also stipulated that local law enforcement agencies cannot use city funds to target and prosecute personal mushroom offenses. And in Milner’s case, the DPD didn’t need to do more: The DEA was on the job. On September 11, 2019, DEA agents raided We Deliver RedGingerDenver.com 720-627-5769 Milner’s apartment. They walked out with 906 live psychedelic mushrooms and 291.6 grams of dried psychedelic mushrooms; they also found black bags with the cartoon fox logo on them. In July 2020, federal prosecutors charged Milner with one count of possession with intent to distribute psilocybin, the active ingredient in psychedelic mushrooms that is classifi ed as a Schedule I substance by the federal government. In September, Milner, facing a maximum sentence of twenty years in prison, pleaded guilty to the single count. And on February 1, Judge R. Brooke Jackson of the U.S. District Court of Colorado sentenced Milner to three years of probation and a $5,500 fi ne, going against the request of federal prosecutors that Milner be given six months in prison. “I don’t think putting this guy in prison for six months is going to accomplish much in terms of deterrence, or that it will benefi t the community in terms of safety, or that it will provide any kind of benefi t for the defen- dant,” Judge Jackson said at the sentencing hearing. “I don’t see this guy being in prison.” After his sentencing, Westword reached out to Milner for comment; he asked for money in exchange, a request Westword denied. Milner then said this: “Comment is: Fuck the Westword magazine.” Email the author at [email protected]. 7 westword.com | CONTENTS | LETTERS | NEWS | NIGHT+DAY | CULTURE | CAFE | MUSIC | WESTWORD FEBRUARY 11-17, 2021
