EL PASO COUNTY — Sheriff Joe Roybal hosted a media-only event Tuesday afternoon concerning the dispute between farmers Courtney and Nicole Mallery and their neighbors in eastern El Paso County.
The dispute in Yoder reportedly centers on claims of racism, property vandalism, dead farm animals, and stalking. The Mallerys were arrested last week on felony stalking charges. The husband is also charged with utility tampering and theft.
According to Sheriff Roybal, the online reporting of incidents involving several people and properties in Yoder has been mischaracterized and has fed misinformation to the public in an online publication and through social media shares.
Roybal reminded reporters he did ask for assistance in the matter from community leaders, but that process has not moved forward "due to reluctance on the part of the Mallerys."
Lieutenant Christopher Gonzalez spoke about the Mallery's 1,000-acre plus parcel in the area and an easement used for other property owners to access their parcels. The sheriff's office says the process served was hired to serve papers to Courtney Mallery for a civil matter.
During this media event, authorities only shared information about their interactions with the couple. No videos or reports about neighbors were covered.
Gonzalez showed the media an April 2021 video of a process server who walked through a gate onto the Mallery's property with court papers. In the video, he is unable to contact anyone at the buildings and an RV, until Nicole Mallery arrived on the property in a van.
The interaction with the process server involved at least one shot being fired from a shotgun, according to the Sheriff's Office. The process server left the property and called deputies who then spoke to Nicole Mallery about her concerns.
Mallery was arrested and charged with menacing for the incident. She was also charged with assault on an officer when the El Paso SWAT team served the warrant for the charge. Nicole Mallery was placed on probation for the menacing charge.
The sheriff's office showed body cam video of the arrest, Nicole Mallery in custody, and interactions with personnel at the El Paso County Jail. The videos were shown as examples of Nicole Mallery being non-compliant, yelling at deputies, refusing medical treatment, and refusing to comply with instructions during jail intake, according to the sheriff's office.
She is heard using profanity and insults to deputies while also claiming her handcuffs were too tight and that a deputy had broken her arm. Authorities say she refused medical treatment on scene and then transported to a hospital to be medically cleared before intake at the jail.
News5 is not sharing the videos as presented in the event as it has extensive profanity. You can view the event on the El Paso County Facebook page.
Lt. Gonzalez went on to detail several calls for service around the property which eventually lead to the couple's arrest on stalking charges for surveillance cameras pointing toward a neighbor's property.
Read more about the criminal charges filed against the couple
News5's Andy Koen has spoken with Portia Prescott, President of the Rocky Mountain NAACP, who says her group is helping the couple find a defense attorney; and the organization is on a fact-finding mission concerning property lines.
According to Prescott, the couple claims they've faced racial harassment since buying a 640-acre section near Yoder a few years ago.
"We are now in a situation where their neighbor has been able to manipulate the system to weaponize the police against them," said Prescott. "We're going to find out the exact borders of their land, we're going to conduct, make sure an independent surveyor comes out and surveys the property so that we get a clear idea as NAACP, and we want to see if this is something that the county or the mayor's office or something, that this is what they could've done," she said.
The El Paso County Sheriff's Office has denied allegations of harassment toward the couple by deputies.
As of last week, dispatchers have received more than 170 calls for service to the property since April 2021, according to an EPC Sheriff's Office spokesperson.
The El Paso County Sheriff's Office has compiled roughly 100 pages from the 23 case reports involving the Mallerys. They plan to release them after they finish with redactions. This in addition to more than 40 hours of body camera footage from their calls for service to the property.
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