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Christmas capers and crimes

Jane Stebbins

SUMMIT COUNTY – A variety of unusual crimes took place over the holiday weekend, including the loss of a $30,000 diamond ring and the theft of a dining room chair.

In the first incident, a Dallas couple left their Keystone condo when the fire alarm sounded Christmas Day, taking all their jewelry from the room’s safe. The woman put a ring on her finger, then her gloves on her hands. She then took off the gloves in the lobby.

When the two returned to their room and the man asked his wife for her jewelry, she noticed the ring – a two-karat diamond with diamond baguettes around each side of the ring – was missing.



They searched the lobby to no avail before filing a report. The ring is valued at $30,000.

In the second incident, sheriff’s officers were summoned to a Peak 7 residence where a man reported that he returned to his house Dec. 26 to find a chair missing from his dining room – and the bedding in his bedroom was upside down. There are no suspects in the caper.



On Saturday, sheriff’s officers arrested a man, identified as 23-year-old Luis Antonio Avila-Lugo, after they ran his name through the criminal computer data base and learned he was wanted on a hit-and-run death/injury warrant out of California.

Sheriff’s officers also arrested Jonathan White, 33, on charges of assault after he allegedly punched another man in the nose at The Goat in Keystone early Monday morning.

According to reports, David Balicki said he was standing near the pool tables when White asked him to move so he could make his shot. Balicki moved, White made his shot and then turned and punched Balicki in the nose, breaking it.

White, who has an assault charge on his criminal record, was arrested for second-degree assault.

In a less unusual case, sheriff’s officers responded to Copper Station Rentals at Copper Mountain Resort for the report of a burglary in which $813 in a cash bag was reported missing.


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