ROARING FORK BROADCASTING COMPANY
Children who were allegedly sexually assaulted by their preschool supervisor will be called to testify in a courtroom hearing to determine whether they can take the witness stand at trial.
The proceeding, called a child competency hearing, will take place in Pitkin County District Judge Chris Seldin’s courtroom in mid-February, roughly three weeks before the start of a jury trial for a former preschool teacher.
Defendant Christopher Tedstone, 43, of the middle Roaring Fork Valley area, is scheduled to stand trial beginning March 5 on three class 3 felony counts of sexual assault on a child by one in a position of trust. The offenses allegedly occurred at a Basalt-area day care facility when Tedstone worked there as a supervisor from December 2019 until July 2022.
The prosecution’s case is relying in part on forensic interviews done by Basalt police investigators with the children. It will be Seldin’s decision whether the children testifying are capable of retelling the events for a child of their age. If he finds them competent, they will be allowed to testify at trial. Tedstone is being charged for crimes he allegedly committed in the summer of 2022 at the Basalt preschool facility.
During a motions hearing held Monday, Seldin said the court will be navigating new waters with the hearing. Tedstone will not attend the hearing in person but will observe it virtually.
“We haven’t done a child competency hearing in this division, so I don’t have a procedure,” Seldin said.
The judge, however, said he would not tolerate the children being grilled on the witness stand, but he would allow Tedstone’s defense lawyer to cross-examine them.
“We’ve got 4- and 5-year-olds who will be testifying and the court’s expectation is that you’re going to be nice,” Seldin told prosecutor Wes Stokes and defense lawyer Nick James. “ I’m certainly not going to permit any aggression or bullying.”
James said he wanted to reserve the right to cross-examine the children. The children’s stories are questionable because they have been influenced by other people, James suggested at the hearing. He was often critical of the police work and prosecution, saying that some evidence was destroyed and “a lot of police actions were not recorded.”
“In this case,” James argued, “there is a lot of indication of child suggestibility and interference.” The competency hearing should reveal whether the “children can distinguish what they have been told and what is reality,” James said.
“I do think the defense should be able to inquire to suggestibility and some of that latitude should come from a lack of evidence that was collected and the evidence that was destroyed,” he said.
Stokes argued that James was conflating competency with hearsay. Hearsay, which is an out-of-court statement that cannot be cross-examined in court, is allowed in certain instances of child sexual assault cases. Questioning the young witnesses about outside influences on their impressions of the alleged events would be inappropriate for a child competency hearing, Stokes said.
“None of that sounded like a child competency hearing to me, judge,” Stokes said. “It sounded like a cross-examination about interference or suggestibility. Some of that is the purview of child hearsay, certainly, and of course during the trial. But the question of child competency, I haven’t seen case law or anything related to suggestibility … I have multiple concerns about defense attorneys cross-examining kids. One of them, that content seems like it is completely inappropriate for a child competency hearing. I don’t know how that goes to anything the court needs to decide.”
Seldin was not persuaded.
“Certainly I’m not going to allow aggressive or bullying cross-examination,” he said. “Some attorneys think that’s effective in certain contexts, but that won’t be permitted. That goes without saying. Be nice to the little kids; that seems like the most basic guideline I can provide.”
In a related development Monday, prosecutor Stokes introduced a motion asking that the judge allow as evidence records of Tedstone’s behavior with children at an Aspen day care facility where he worked from November 2007 until August 2009 and from November 2012 to December 2017. Aspen police interviewed some of the employees who worked with Tedstone in Aspen. “Several of the interviewees recalled complaints or concerns about his interactions with children,” said the motion.
Facility employees told Aspen investigators about Tedstone’s behavior that appeared to show him grooming little girls in 2017. Tedstone does not face any criminal charges for his time at the Aspen day care.
“Some of the ‘red flags’ that (a day care worker) noticed included telling secrets, tickling and touching the children without asking them,” one of the employees told an Aspen investigator.
The employee also said she notified her supervisors in November 2017 after she saw Tedstone having inappropriate contact with a little girl. That incident was one of several in 2017 that led day care facility employees to complain to their supervisors about Tedstone’s behavior with female children, including allegations that he took them individually off the preschool grounds (against the preschool rules), physically picked up children against their will and exited the boys' bathroom with a female student on at least two occasions.
Meeting with one of his supervisors on Nov. 22, 2017, Tedstone was told about staff concerns about his conduct with children. Six days later, an employee reported to supervisors that she saw Tedstone leave a boys bathroom with a girl. Tedstone was fired Nov. 30, 2017, the motion said.
The evidence of Tedstone’s behavior at the Aspen day care facility should be admitted at trial because it will show his “scheme, design, and modus operandi, as they relate to his interactions with the child victims and the way he took advantage of those opportunities,” the motion said.
Tedstone has proclaimed his innocence since his arrest in December 2022. He is out of jail on a $50,000 cash bond. Convictions on the current counts against Tedstone carry general sentencing ranges of 4 to 12 years in state prison and up to a lifetime behind bars in aggravating circumstances.