Colorado State Rep. Tim Leonard, R-Evergreen, was jailed Friday afternoon after a judge ruled that he was in contempt of court in his divorce case.
Leonard, 55, was booked into the Jefferson County Jail about 2:30 p.m. to begin serving a 14-day sentence for contempt of court that was handed down earlier in the afternoon by Magistrate Marianne Marshall Tims.
Tims issued the sentence in the wake of a Sept. 29 ruling that Leonard was in contempt of court.
“She could have given him up to six months,” said Leonard’s attorney, Sharon Liko. “That’s the good news – it’s just a couple weeks and it shouldn’t interfere with the legislative session.”
The Colorado Independent first reported that Leonard had been jailed. According to the Independent, Magistrate Tims ruled that Leonard repeatedly violated the terms of his 2013 divorce by interfering in his former wife’s educational decisions about their children.
According to the Independent, Leonard twice tried to opt his children out of standardized testing and refused to allow one of his kids to use a school-issued tablet computer in class.
Leonard, a real estate developer from Evergreen, was appointed to the Colorado House in January to fill the seat vacated when Jon Keyser resigned to run for the U.S. Senate. Leonard was elected to a two-year term in November.
