Attempted-murder charge tossed in shooting of alleged bar burglar
After watching surveillance tapes from the Funky Buddha restaurant, a Denver judge orders the co-owner to stand trial for first-degree assault.
By Howard Pankratz,
Denver Post Staff Writer
A Denver businessman who said he shot a burglar in self-defense inside his restaurant won a crucial victory Monday when a judge threw out an attempted-murder charge against him.
County Judge Aleene Ortiz-White said that Dwayne Stepp, 44, who broke into the Funky Buddha bar at 3:11 a.m. on Jan. 3, repeatedly advanced toward co-owner Christakes Christou.
The judge, who twice watched surveillance-camera tapes of the encounter, said Stepp and Christou were in close contact during the confrontation. Although armed with a pistol, Christou, 60, did not fire, she said.
Instead, Ortiz-White said, Christou pushed Stepp back twice. Only on the third occasion, when Stepp again was right in his face, did Christou shoot, wounding Stepp in the abdomen.
The judge, however, did order Christou to stand trial for first- degree assault, leaving it up to a jury to decide whether Christou intended to "cause serious bodily injury" to Stepp by shooting him.
Defense attorney Larry Pozner said that had the incident occurred in a home, Christou would have been able to shoot Stepp under Colorado's "make my day" law without any repercussions. But Pozner said the law doesn't apply to businessmen confronted in their businesses.
During the day-long preliminary hearing, Pozner also hammered Denver detectives and prosecutors, contending that they had failed to look into Stepp's lengthy criminal background. Pozner said that over the years, Stepp has been arrested more than 50 times in four states and used seven different names and three different Social Security numbers.
Among Stepp's most recent arrests, Pozner said, was at the Funky Buddha, where he was arrested Aug. 26, 2005, for walking in the back door, taking a bottle of bourbon from a liquor cabinet and then walking out.
The lead investigator on the case, Detective Bret Starnes, said he didn't know the degree of Stepp's criminal activity, although he knew he had a lengthy arrest
record. Starnes also said he didn't know Stepp had told the Denver district attorney's office that he was very drunk the night of the altercation.
The surveillance tapes showed Stepp walking up to the glass front door of the lounge, removing a side panel of the door, and crawling in.
Sgt. Michael Wyatt, the first officer on the scene, said Christou told him that Stepp broke in, that he had broken in four times before, that Stepp pushed him and so he shot him.
Prosecutor Dawn Weber said that Stepp has pleaded guilty to trespassing and was sentenced to probation.
The prosecution's case was built around Starnes' interpretation of the video in which he characterized Christou as the primary aggressor.
Starnes also said that it was 57 minutes from the time of the shooting until someone from the Funky Buddha called 911.
He said that during that time, a number of acquaintances of Christou arrived at the lounge and that it appeared that at least one of the people kicked the front door to make it appear that Stepp had kicked in the door.
Pozner said that had Stepp approached any Denver police officer the way Stepp approached Christou, the police would have shot him five times in the chest.
"He (Stepp) would have been dead, dead, dead," Pozner said. "He would have been dead, deader, deadest."
. If Stepp had a lethal weapon or had there been at least a drag out fight and had Stepp been so much larger than Christou that he could have indeed killed him in a physical fight, I might be inclined to be more on the side of Christou, but you don't shoot someone unless you are in fear of your life....and that is not indicated anywhere, unless I really missed something. Absent really strong cause for self defense, I think Christou needs some time in jail. 
