Pastor who "profoundly betrayed trust" of Denver family gets 12 years probation in construction case

Pastor Tilo Lopez, 58, described as an ordained minister and active in his church, was sentenced Monday to 12 years probation after he pleaded guilty to filing a false tax return, a felony, and attempting to commit theft, a misdemeanor charge. The charges stemmed from a construction project in west Denver that he was paid for in 2020, according to court records, but never completed, according to a family that paid him hundreds of thousands of dollars for work that was never done.

"He is a thief who took advantage of our vulnerability," said Elsie Lara, 76, who knew Lopez since he was a child. She said Lopez's actions "were a profound betrayal of our trust."

 Lara said she and her husband, who is now 80, lost over $400,000 to Lopez.

"This was our life savings," she told a judge during Monday's sentencing hearing.

Lopez did not address the accusations during the sentencing hearing but his attorney, Grant Grosgebauer, said, "He admits he made some mistakes here ... he is here to take responsibility."

According to the Lara family, they had wanted to scrape a house they owned on a property adjacent to their home. Their daughter and her children had been living in the house for years, but they wanted to build a duplex for their daughter and grandchildren to live in and then rent out the other half of the duplex to provide an income stream. They had known Lopez for years and he was a regular customer at their restaurant. He told them he was a general contractor and submitted a bid for the duplex project, which they accepted.

The couple took out an initial loan for $520,000 for the project.

"We thought he was a good person," said Elsie Lara, "because he was a minister we trusted him -- we thought he was a man of God."

They said Lopez supervised demolition of the home but after that, "Tilo didn't do anything else on the project."

"He just disappeared," said the family.

The Denver District Attorney charged Lopez in 2022 with two counts of criminal exploitation of an at-risk person. An investigator for the Denver District Attorney's office said Lopez spent the Lara's money on "personal uses" like plane tickets, hotels, clothing and his own legal fees stemming from other cases.

On Monday, in a plea bargain, Lopez pleaded guilty to a felony charge of filing a false tax return and attempt to commit theft, a misdemeanor.

The Lara family asked Judge Jay Sutherland Grant to sentence Lopez to prison, as Elsie Lara told the judge, "Tilo robbed us of money and trust. This was our life savings. Please impose a term of incarceration."

The family and their attorney cited Lopez's previous criminal convictions in Arapahoe County and Denver cases where he received probation as indicators that another probationary sentence was a "slap on the hand."

The Laras also noted that Lopez had previous bankruptcies.

But the Judge sided with prosecutors and Lopez's attorney who had agreed on a plea deal that would mean probation and carry no jail time, saying he was not going to "derail" the plea bargain.

A Denver prosecutor said in court he had struggled with the appropriateness of the plea agreement but ultimately thought it was "an appropriate resolution."

Matt Jablow, a spokesperson for the Denver District Attorney's office, released a statement saying, "Plea offers are based on a number of factors, including victim input, the strength of the case, the expected sentence at trial, and the sentences that defendants have received in similar cases. All of those factors were considered in Mr. Lopez's case."

The judge set aside time in November for a restitution hearing, but the Lara family said since 2020, Lopez has not paid anything back.

And they say even though no duplex was ever built, they still have to pay $4,900 every month for the loan that Lopez coordinated for the construction project.

Juanita Aliste-Munoz, the Laras' daughter who had lived for 27 years in the house that was demolished, said she now has to live with her parents since her home is no longer standing.

"It broke my family," she said. "It hurts me because they worked so hard all their lives. To see that somebody came and just took it, now they're sick and even though they're sick they've got to work. We all got to work for something that's not even there. It has really destroyed this family."