Colorado contractor gets 10 years for exposing employee to asbestos

A 55-year-old Denver-area contractor was recently sentenced to a decade behind bars after he hired a worker to do demolition work and failed to notify the worker about a known health hazard or protect him from it. 

A Jefferson County District Court judge handed Lance Slayton a 10-year prison term on Thursday. A jury convicted Slayton in November of multiple charges including criminal exploitation of an at-risk elder and violations of the Air Quality Control Act.

The state attorney general's office pursued charges against Slayton for offenses in Arvada almost three years ago. Slayton was hired by the owner of a four-plex in that city after one of the units caught fire in April 2022. At the time, Slayton was the registered owner of Preferred Companies LLC and Colorado Catastrophe Assistance Program, according to a grand jury indictment in the case. 

Slayton was hired by the then 82-year-old owner of the fourplex as a general contractor to begin the overhaul of the unit. Slayton was one of her tenants at another rental property, per the indictment. 

Slayton was told that a state-licensed restoration company had secured the burned-out unit immediately after the fire and tested it for asbestos. 

"The testing report found that the apartment contained a 'major spill' of asbestos throughout the unit," as stated in the indictment. Slayton communicated with both the owner and her insurance company regarding the test results. 

Slayton, in turn, hired then 27-year-old Jimmy Gollihugh Jr. to perform the actual demolition work. Gollihugh, however, was not licensed by the state health department to perform asbestos abatement, a process that requires personal protective equipment, control of air flow in and out of a contaminated area, and proper disposal of materials.

Gollihugh was never informed about the asbestos, according to the indictment. In fact, prosecutors alleged Slayton removed asbestos warning signs prior to meeting Gollihugh at the site. 

Asbestos is a fiber once commonly used in building construction, most often within insulation and wallboard. When it was determined to be a significant cause of cancer, the Environmental Protection Agency and other government agencies began to heavily regulate its use. The U.S. Occupations Safety and Health Administration established its first asbestos guidelines in 1970. 

Asbestos is now a labeled carcinogen. It causes a rare form of lung cancer, the signs of which can appear 30 to 40 years after exposure to asbestos.

An engineer with the fourplex owner's insurance company witnessed an unprotected individual working at the site and notified authorities. The Colorado Department of Public Health and Environment then stepped in and stopped Gollihugh's demolition of the apartment on September 13, 2022 - four months after it had began.

Slayton was sentenced to 10 years in prison for criminal exploitation of an at-risk elder and theft from an at-risk elder, each carrying a 10-year term. He also received a four-year sentence for intentionally causing a hazardous substance incident and another four-year sentence for knowingly endangering the fourplex's neighbors. The judge allowed the sentences to be served concurrently (or simultaneously).

Slayton was paid more than $71,000 from the fourplex owner. A hearing in front of the same JeffCo judge is scheduled for April 10, at which time the amount of restitution (money paid back to victims of a crime by its perpetrator) will be determined.

In a press release, the Colorado Attorney General's Office stated its prosecutors are seeking a total of $85,000. 

Slayton's girlfriend at the time, 46-year-old Christina Beckner, was also arrested and charged for her role in the affair. She communicated most often with the fourplex owner and who deposited checks from her into Slayton's accounts, according to the indictment. Beckner pleaded guilty last month to theft from an at-risk adult and causing a hazardous materials incident. Both are felonies. 

Beckner is scheduled for sentencing in March. 

Jimmy Gollihugh was unavailable for comment on the case or sentencing, and currently resides out of state.

Slayton, incidentally, was responsible for a $173,000 payout in November 2023 between a shopping center and its property management company. Slayton's Preferred Companies was hired to do construction work on the Denver-area shopping center's roof. However, he only completed a small portion of the work, an attorney involved in the case told CBS Colorado. The management company failed to supervise Slayton's work, the attorney said, and the work that was completed was unsalvageable and removed by a different company which finished the project.