A court issued a distraint warrant against the property of Stephen D. Daniels in Eagle County on 12/28/10 for unpaid property taxes in the amount of $10,200.19. As of January 3, 2024, the judgment is still listed as “UNSATISFIED”
Update: As of February 1, 2024, the debt is still listed as “Unsatisfied,” and appears to date back to the filing period of 12/21/2003.
Stephen D. Daniels, Chair of Mesa County’s new and supposedly more financially responsible Board of Public Health, has owed the State of Colorado $10,200 in unpaid income taxes since at least 2010. Court records accessed on 1/3/2024 currently list the debt as “UNSATISFIED.”
In 2010, the Colorado Department of Revenue (DOR) filed a lawsuit against Daniels for $10,200.19 in unpaid taxes (Case No. 2010CV800822). On December 28, 2010, an Eagle County Court entered a judgment against Daniels for the amount and then issued a distraint warrant against Daniels’ property. After the judgment and warrant were filed with the Eagle County Clerk and Recorder, the warrant became a lien on all of the real estate Daniels owns in Eagle County.
Daniels apparently has ignored the judgment, debt and warrant for over 13 years.
What is a Distraint Warrant?
Stephen D. Daniels (Photo: Mesa County
According to the State of Colorado (pdf, page 2), a distraint warrant is “a legal document giving the department and its agents the power to collect delinquent taxes or seize and sell sufficient property to satisfy delinquent taxes.” It is the government’s equivalent of putting a lien on your property. The state puts a distraint warrant on a debtor’s property to assure the state eventually gets paid the amount it is owed. The debtor is usually served the warrant by the county sheriff in the form of a document that indicates the amount taxes overdue, the final due date for payment and instructions prohibiting the debtor from removing or destroying any property or assets inside a business. If the taxes remain unpaid, the debtor’s property can be seized, advertised and sold for the amount of taxes due, plus the expenses of having to advertise and sell it, and possibly interest on the debt.
Financial whiz?
According to Daniels’ bio sketch on the County Health Department’s website, he has a Masters of Business Administration, was a Certified Public Accountant and claims to have worked as a Chief Financial Officer at several companies during his career. He also says he is an adjunct teacher of economics, finance and accounting at Colorado Mountain College in Eagle County. An “adjunct” instructor is an employee who works part-time on a contractual basis and is not eligible for tenure.
A July 8, 2023 article in the Daily Sentinel said county commissioners appointed Daniels to help “bring financial experience” to the Board of Health.
If for some reason the information the Court has on this debt is incorrect, Stephen Daniels is welcome to respond about why it is wrong.
A tax joke
Why does the state wait well over 10 years to do something about delinquent property taxes?
Really good question.
Heres another tax joke ‘Figures don’t lie. Liars just figure!
This entire pageant Keeps looping back to one (1) individual, whom we are all painfully aware of their identity! But, honestly, it is beginning to look like “Buch Cassidy & the sundance Kid! New miscreants every week!
I still maintain my original thoughts which were and are: If you remove the chief miscreant, you remove the cog! Hence, you gain back some measure of control! Remember, the cog had been in office for eight years and with five years absence, the cog can run again for another run on the throne! Can we the county really afford a closed-end tyrannical leadership? This is my opinion and my idiosyncrasy! but it’s still mine…
Gotta love it when the right-wing trolls are so lazy and desperate to “own the libs” they need an AI spambot to generate their nonsensical and grammatically illiterate comments. All hail, King cog!
To be fair, he brought exactly the kind fiscal expertise the County Commissioners were after; that of a self-important fool, fraud, and/or useful fall guy upon which to hang any number of their illegal activities if ever challenged in court or sued. By now, this GOP hiring practice may as well a crayon commandment.
Besides, anybody willing to step into a figurehead position like this, esp to support Rowland’s coup along with serving a self-professed budgetary “mongoloid” like Cody Davis, is not there to faithfully perform the job…but rather what they’re told. Though perhaps these Commissioners and their legal eagle Todd Starr were too incompetent vet this guy properly or rather saw, like in him, such financial improprieties as an actual job qualification.
There must be ANOTHER Stephen Daniels??? I hope!
Stephen D. Daniels from Eagle County, CO. His biosketch says he’s an adjunct instructor at Colorado Mtn College’s Eagle campus. It fit.
I knew you were on it, I just couldn’t believe it for some ridiculous reason! Hoped it wasn’t true!
How you discover and unveil these truths, I am so impressed. Keep up the good work!
My thought too
This information is available to the public for free on the internet. You just have to know where to look and have some patience to create accounts and get new access codes every time you log into the databases, etc.