Former candidate for Aurora City Council has no duty to register as a sex offender, Denver district court judge rules

A court order issued by a Denver district court judge in August confirms former candidate for Aurora City Council, Abel Laeke, has no duty to register as a sex offender.

In 2017 Abel Laeke was vying for one of two open at-large seats on the Aurora City Council when it was discovered a charge from 2004 had landed Laeke on the Colorado Bureau of Investigation's sex offender registry.

Court documents show that Laeke has been fighting to appeal the sex charge for years.

At the time the CBI website showed a 2005 conviction of a sexual contact charge, a class 5 felony, although Laeke was never convicted and instead was committed to the Colorado Mental Health Hospital in Pueblo after being adjudicated "not guilty by reason of insanity" in April of 2005.

He was granted unconditional release in February of 2024 and in August of this year a judge took up his request for deregistration.

In an order issued August 11th a judge said "Mr. Laeke has never been convicted of a crime involving "unlawful sexual behavior" and that "Mr. Laeke has no statutory duty to register as a sex offender."

The order goes on to say that any prior orders requiring him to register as a sex offender have been vacated.

In 2017, CBS Colorado reached out to Laeke he said he did not want to discuss details surrounding the charge, he said that the memoire he wrote entitled "No Pressure, No Diamonds" offers insight into his past.

Its preview on Amazon.com reads: "I was lured by the bad behavior of those I considered friends, alarming my family and derailing my life. Add the trauma of the terror attacks of September 11, 2001, and my life hurtled toward the dark halls of a psychiatric institution. Like a phoenix, I was able to reclaim my life and turn my hard-won lessons into a passion for service to humanity."