A Boulder County Senior Deputy District Attorney has been named the Colorado Prosecutor of the Year for her work across a range of cases.
The Colorado District Attorneys’ Council annually recognizes one Colorado prosecutor with the Robert R. Gallagher Award, and this year it was a senior deputy of the Boulder County District Attorney’s Office, Michelle Sudano. She received the award at the Colorado District Attorney’s Council Conference and District Attorney Michael Dougherty presented the award.
“Michelle is an outstanding prosecutor. She consistently demonstrates compassion for victims
and has brought some of the most dangerous offenders to justice,” he said. “Her commitment to justice and her work ethic are exemplary. This Prosecutor of the Year Award reflects Michelle’s
extraordinary efforts in the courtroom and for our community.”
Sudano is assigned to the office’s sex crimes unit and prosecutes felony-level sex crimes. According to a press release from the office, Sudano had an outstanding year in her work with the sex crimes unit.
This year, her noteworthy trials included a multi-defendant sexual assault case, a sex assaul trial with two young victims and a stranger sex assault case that went to trial. In addition, Sudano took on other difficult and violent cases in other areas of the office.
Sudano prosecuted the first-degree murder shooting case against Richard Martinez, where the defendant shot and missed his original target, killing Longmont resident Matthew Bond.
Simultaneously, Sudano was assigned to the cold case murder investigation into the disappearance of Longmont mother Rita Gutierrez-Garcia. Along with the Longmont Police Department and others with the District Attorney’s Office, Sudano participated in the Grand Jury investigation resulting in the indictment of Juan Figueroa for murder.
She helped lead the team effort to obtain a confession and murder conviction along with information leading to the recovery of Gutierrez-Garcia’s body, the release said. The release added that Sudano also played an integral role in a major human-trafficking indictment and an officer-involved shooting investigation.
