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Breckenridge near-drowning case ends with ‘no contest’ plea, deferred judgment

Joe Moylan
jmoylan@summitdaily.com
Bianca Krakofsky

After a month of considering the options, district judge Karen Romeo accepted a plea of “no contest” from Bianca Krakofsky, the suspect in a near-drowning of a child case in Breckenridge.

Krakofsky, of Colorado Springs, appeared Thursday in Summit County District Court with her attorney, Shay Whitaker, of Aurora. She pleaded no contest to one count of felony child abuse negligently causing serious bodily injury.

Krakofsky received a two-year deferred judgment with supervised probation. During that time she also will be required to complete 120 hours of community service.



Deputy district attorney Rusty Prindle said a deferred judgment is a lot like a contract between Krakofsky and the court. Should she meet all of the criteria of the agreement, Krakofsky would avoid a felony conviction on her record.

However, should Krakofsky fail to abide by the terms of the contract or be accused of committing another crime over the course of the next two years, the deferred judgment would be revoked automatically and she would face immediate sentencing. Pleading no contest is legally considered a guilty plea, Prindle said, meaning she would not be entitled to a hearing should she fail to meet the terms of the deferred judgment.



“A deferred judgment gives a person an opportunity to avoid a conviction, but they have to earn it,” Prindle said. “Deferred judgments are used for people with clean records, but we offer them on a case-by-case basis. District Attorney (Bruce) Brown thought it was an appropriate offer in this case and the judge agreed.”

Rick Levinson, a Colorado Springs attorney who said he represents the interests of the alleged victim in the case during a hearing last month, raised questions about the deal, saying at the time a deferred judgment was unjust to his 5-year-old client who has been “incapacitated” and confined to a bed since almost drowning in October 2013 in a hot tub at the Grand Lodge in Breckenridge. The victim was in Krakofsky’s foster care at the time of the incident and had allegedly been left unsupervised in the hot tub.

Calls to Levinson for a comment about the deferred judgment were not returned by press time.


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