Opening statements set to begin Monday in trial for former Vail councilman accused of stealing from escrow account

If the rest of the trial is anything like jury selection, it could be a long week for jurors hearing the case of former Vail Councilman Greg Moffet, who has been accused of felony theft and embezzlement of public property.

Attorney Rick Kornfeld, representing Moffet, began his questioning of potential jurors on Friday with an apology for the fact that his opportunity to talk was beginning after 5 p.m. Potential jurors had arrived at 8:30 a.m. that day, before being excused and asked to return in the afternoon.

Moffet, following years of civil litigation, was accused by the town of Vail in 2024 of felony theft for allegedly paying $18,805 in personal bills and $44,603 in legal fees from an escrow account set up to collect monies owed to the town of Vail after Moffet declared bankruptcy on his company, Tiga Advertising, which was doing business with the town.

Tiga Advertising was once responsible for managing advertisements inside the town of Vail buses and parking facilities, a contract for which had Tiga making payments to the town. The company got behind in those payments, but the amount owed has been in dispute, with Moffet saying Tiga owed the town $62,500 and the town saying it owed twice that amount, or more.

The matter was working its way through the civil court system starting in late 2020, when, a little more than three years later, the effort to pursue criminal charges came about following a dispute over how funds were being spent out of an escrow account that was under the supervision of the bankruptcy court.

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Moffet’s attorneys accused the town of Vail of “walking the complaint down the hall to the Vail Police Department,” and the police department not doing “one iota of criminal investigation.”

Prosecuting attorney Henry Solano said while the town “may have had its own issues, its own views, about what should happen … I am not aware of any district attorney or any district attorney’s office that forfeits their right to make an independent determination on whether or not to file criminal charges.”

Moffet pleaded not guilty, and a jury trial, after several delays, began on Friday with jury selection.

Kornfeld asked potential jurors questions like, “does owing money mean you’ve committed a crime?” and “has anyone ever been late paying a bill?” Most agreed that owing money and being late are not crimes.

Prosecuting attorney Taina Colon asked if anyone had unpleasant interactions with government workers, and did not get much response. She then asked if anyone had every worked for the government themselves, to which many said they had, and she then asked if, because they worked for the government, did they also represent that government in their personal life. Everyone said they did not.

Kornfeld and Colon both singled out one potential juror who came from a finance background to ask questions about loans, how loan payments work, and at what point taking out a loan and not paying it off could become criminal. That juror was eventually selected to be on the jury, along with 11 other people.

Judge Rachel Olguin-Fresquez told jurors that the case is shaping up to be a longer trial, one that is “a little bit more involved.”

But Olguin-Fresquez also informed the court that she herself won’t be available on Friday.

“It is not our intention to be here on Friday, so we are intending to wrap up on Thursday,” she said. “Thursday could be a late afternoon, evening, if the jury is deliberating and will need a little more time.”