Peo v. Pompa

Colorado Court of Appeals·Decided April 30, 2026·No. 23CA1461·Unpublished

Opinion

23CA1461 Peo v Pompa 04-30-2026 COLORADO COURT OF APPEALS

Court of Appeals No. 23CA1461 Arapahoe County District Court No. 20CR476 Honorable Eric White, Judge

The People of the State of Colorado, Plaintiff-Appellee, v. Kevin Adam Pompa, Defendant-Appellant.

JUDGMENT AFFIRMED

Division VII

Opinion by JUDGE GOMEZ

Pawar and Johnson, JJ., concur

NOT PUBLISHED PURSUANT TO C.A.R. 35(e)

Announced April 30, 2026

Philip J. Weiser, Attorney General, Frank R. Lawson, Senior Assistant Attorney General, Phalen Kohlruss-Reuman, Assistant Attorney General, Denver, Colorado, for Plaintiff-Appellee

Megan A. Ring, Colorado State Public Defender, Mackenzie R. Shields, Deputy State Public Defender, Denver, Colorado, for Defendant-Appellant

¶1 Defendant, Kevin Adam Pompa, appeals the judgment of conviction entered after a jury convicted him of burglary, criminal trespass, and menacing. He argues that (1) his statutory right to a speedy trial was violated; (2) the trial court erroneously admitted testimonial hearsay statements in violation of his Confrontation Clause rights; and (3) the trial court allowed the prosecutor to engage in reversible misconduct during closing argument. We reject his arguments and affirm the judgment.

I. Background

¶2 Pompa and the victim had a casual relationship after meeting on a dating website. A few months into their relationship, the victim moved apartments. She and Pompa agreed that she would pay him $350 to help her move. When Pompa came to help, he brought his wife and mother-in-law.

¶3 The victim said that things with Pompa were awkward after the move because she’d thought he was separated from his wife and because he complained he should’ve been paid more for his help. She agreed to pay him more but needed time to do so. Eventually, he became more demanding about the money in phone calls and text messages with her.

¶4 About a month after the move, the victim was woken up by a knock at her door. She asked who was there and heard someone say, “[M]aintenance.” She testified that she cracked the door open and saw Pompa, who shoved her door open, walked inside with a gun in his hand, and started demanding money and threatening to shoot her. When she refused to give him money, he hit her in the head with the gun. She fell to the ground and lost consciousness.

¶5 When the victim regained consciousness, she realized she was bleeding heavily from her head. She called 911, and her neighbor came to help after hearing her screams. The victim and her neighbor told the 911 operator what had happened and that the attacker had fled with another person in a white truck.

¶6 Later on, the victim was confused about some of the details of the attack, like how her fingernail was broken, how her TV got knocked over, and why beer bottles were scattered on the floor. But her account that Pompa had been to her apartment was later corroborated by a vehicle registration record showing that Pompa owned a white truck and by cell phone data that showed Pompa in the area of the victim’s apartment at the time of the attack.

¶7 Pompa didn’t testify at trial. His theory of defense was that the victim either made up the story or was attacked by someone else, and that she accused him because she was mad when she found out he wasn’t separated from his wife. The jury convicted him on charges of first degree burglary, first degree criminal trespass, and felony menacing, while acquitting him on another first degree burglary charge and a charge of second degree assault.

¶8 This appeal followed.

II. Speedy Trial

¶9 Pompa first contends that his statutory right to a speedy trial was violated. Specifically, he asserts that the trial court erred in rejecting his speedy trial challenge by (1) concluding that he was unavailable while he was in federal custody; (2) incorrectly determining the start date of his period of unavailability; and (3) miscalculating the new speedy trial deadline after he became available. We aren’t persuaded.

A. Timeline

¶ 10 The events giving rise to Pompa’s charges occurred in early 2020. After his initial arrest, Pompa was released on bond. On July 27, 2020, he pleaded not guilty. The trial court calculated the

initial speedy trial deadline as January 27, 2021, and trial was set to begin on January 5.

¶ 11 On November 11, 2020, the prosecution learned that Pompa was in federal custody but was being held in the Denver County Jail. The next day, the prosecution requested, and the court issued, a writ to the Denver Sheriff Department so Pompa could appear remotely for a motions hearing on November 13. Pompa failed to appear at that hearing. At that time, the court declared a mistrial due to the COVID-19 pandemic, see Crim. P. 24(c)(4); People v. Sherwood, 2021 CO 61, ¶ 3, and calculated the new speedy trial deadline as April 27, 2021. The court set the trial to begin on April 13.

¶ 12 In March 2021, the prosecution requested, and the court issued, a writ to the United States Marshals Service’s District Office in Denver — where Pompa was assumed to be — for him to appear at an April 7 pretrial readiness conference. The same day the court issued the writ, Pompa filed a letter with the court saying he was “finishing up [a] [f]ederal sentence in [Bureau of Prisons] custody.” The return address on the letter was a federal correctional facility in Oklahoma.

¶ 13 When Pompa didn’t appear at the April 7 conference, the prosecution began searching for his precise location and learned he was in a federal facility in California. The prosecution then filed a motion asking the court to issue a warrant for Pompa’s arrest so it could lodge a detainer with that California facility, noting that Pompa could be brought back to Colorado either under the Interstate Agreement on Detainers (IAD), § 24-60-501, C.R.S. 2025, or through the extradition process after his federal sentence concluded. The prosecution also asked the court to find Pompa unavailable under section 18-1-405(6)(d), C.R.S. 2025, and to reset the speedy trial deadline because the prosecution “cannot simply writ a [d]efendant, from a federal prison, located in another state.”

¶ 14 The court concluded that Pompa was unavailable under section 18-1-405(6)(d) and that “the period of his unavailability should be excluded from statutory speedy trial.” The court further concluded that Pompa’s period of unavailability began on November 13, 2020, when he first failed to appear. The prosecution lodged a detainer for Pompa’s return to Colorado, but Pompa never requested action under the IAD while he remained in federal

custody. On September 7, 2021, he was released from federal custody and brought back to Colorado.

¶ 15 Following Pompa’s return to Colorado and the resumption of efforts to set a trial date in this case, defense counsel filed a motion to dismiss, asserting that the speedy trial deadline had already passed. The court held a hearing, after which it denied the motion.

¶ 16 After another COVID-19-related mistrial and a speedy trial waiver by Pompa, the trial in this case was held in October 2022.

B. Relevant Legal Standards

¶ 17 We review a trial court’s denial of a motion to dismiss for violation of a defendant’s speedy trial rights as a mixed question of law and fact. People v. Burdette, 2024 COA 38, ¶ 37. We won’t disturb the court’s factual findings if they are supported by the record, id., but we review de novo the court’s application of the speedy trial statute, People v. Curren, 2014 COA 59M, ¶ 13.

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