DENVER — Moms have a certain intuition when it comes to trouble with their children.
Tina Parks’ intuition led to a deputy district attorney, who specialized in juvenile prosecution, getting sentenced to jail for a crime involving a juvenile.
“I happened to check my son’s phone," Parks said. "There was just that mom gut feeling of ‘something just didn’t seem right,’ and I picked it up and went straight to text messages, and the first thing I see, I was completely baffled. I went back and read every single text message.”
Parks’ son was 14 years old when he was introduced to then-Denver Deputy District Attorney Dan Steinhauser.
“We just didn’t like some of the choices he was making with friends, and we wanted to help him understand where that could end up,” Jay Parks said about his son’s behavior at the time.
“We just, kind of, felt that he could use a good mentor, and we were introduced to a district attorney who wanted to help our kiddo,” Tina said.
That was Steinhauser, who was a deputy DA in Denver.
Last week, Steinhauser was sentenced after pleading guilty to contributing to the delinquency of a minor.
Concerning text messages began in April 2023
In April 2023, the Parks’ agreed to share their teenage son’s phone number with Steinhauser.
Over the next month, there were hundreds of text messages. And in late May, Tina looked at her son’s phone.
“Definitely not appropriate conversations to be having with a 14-year-old child,” Tina said.
She found message after message that she found concerning.
"Just ripped some Patron shots feelin' nice,” Tina read from one text.
“He says, ‘As weird as it is to say with my job as a prosecutor, I would love to see kids getting into fist fights more. It means they stop shooting each other. Like f*** yeah, beat the f*** out of each other,’” she read from another.
“And then our son says, ‘Oh my God, I’ve never been in a fight, seems scary.’”
Then she read the reply from Steinhauser, “Well, because people love you and you have a pretty face, nobody wants to mess that up, LOL.”
“As I’m reading these, like that feeling you get in your throat and that feeling you get in your stomach, of just that pit, like ‘oh my gosh, where is this going?’” Tina said.
Tina and Jay found suggestive videos sent from Steinhauser.
There was talk about moving the conversation to Snapchat, where Steinhauser wrote, “we hate snap at my job cuz they go away and it’s hard to subpoena snap for crimes."
And then there is a text exchange where Steinhauser appears to suggest how to avoid a positive drug test.
“He’s like, ‘should you what? I can’t encourage you to smoke. LOL. But I can tell you where to get cran pills. Hahaha. You do you and delete our messages,” Tina read from the text. “’Hahaha. Please, don’t get me in trouble.’”
The “cran pills” was a reference to an earlier text where Steinhauser wrote, “You have to take cranberry pills and go to sauna. And drink lots of water. And pee a lot. It’ll be out sooner.”
“He’s in a power position of respect for kids and adults, and he abused that office,” Jay said.
Steinhauser fired, criminal investigation begins
The Parks sent the text images to the Denver District Attorney’s Office. Steinhauser was given a notice of dismissal and lost his job immediately.
The Arapahoe County Sheriff’s Office investigated and charged Steinhauser with contributing to the delinquency of a minor for the discussion of how to avoid testing positive for a drug test.
“I think grooming is an appropriate word,” Jacob Kremin, Arapahoe County Senior Deputy District Attorney, said.
Kremin prosecuted the case for Arapahoe County. Initially, the Parks were concerned that the charge did not fit what they saw building in the text messages.
“Grooming behavior is often not illegal behavior," Kremin said. "It's very often inappropriate behavior, but it's often something that is used to build trust or establish a relationship with a child in order to gain greater access to that for whatever those means may be.”
He applauded the Parks for the concern and attention for their son.
“Huge props to these parents for monitoring their child's communication, even after they'd established the mentor relationship,” Kremin said. “We're just certainly fortunate that this was uncovered by diligent parents trying to help out their child.”
Steinhauser pleaded guilty in July to contributing to the delinquency of a minor.
The maximum jail time for that charge is 364 days in jail.
“If you are to impose a pure jail sentence, it's 364 days. If you want a combination of jail and probation, the most jail you can impose is 60 days,” Kremin said.
The judge sentenced Steinhauser to 60 days in jail but added a maximum probation of five years. That is five years of supervision.
“When we heard five, that was well out of what we were expecting,” Tina said. “We were very pleased by that.”
“I think that it was much more than a slap on the wrist, and I think that justice was served,” Jay said.
“Within the confines of what this crime was, I couldn't have asked for a better outcome,” Tina said.
The Parks’ have also filed a complaint with the Office of Attorney Regulation Counsel, seeking to have him disbarred.
Steinhauser declined a request for an interview from the Arapahoe County Jail.