Witnesses take stand in criminal case against former Vail Town Council member

The criminal trial for former Vail Town Council member Greg Moffet got underway on Monday, with attorneys making opening statements and calling witnesses to the stand.

Moffet has been accused of felony theft and embezzlement by the town of Vail after going thousands of dollars in debt with the town. An escrow account that was then set up to collect those funds was used improperly by Moffet, the prosecution alleges, leading to the criminal charges, which followed years of civil litigation.

Much of Monday’s trial centered around the terms of Moffet’s arrangement with the town, in which he was supposed to make quarterly payments of $18,000 in exchange for the contract to sell advertising in town spaces like buses and parking structures.

Moffet had been behind in the payments for decades, his attorney said during opening statements on Monday, going back to the 1990s.

For a 12-year period, Moffet paid every year late, “but he always paid,” said his attorney, Liz Delay, during her opening statement on Monday.

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Prosecuting attorney Henry Solano, in his opening statement, said that arrangement continued until October of 2020, and after that time, accounts were set up to collect payment from Moffet. But as of 2023, “money, up until that point of time, which was or should have been in those accounts, was transferred over to personal accounts, or used to pay for personal items of Mr. Moffet’s.”

Former Town Manager Scott Robson was called to the stand to testify. Robson said he first met Moffet before starting his tenure as town manager in 2019, at which time he became aware of the fact that Moffet was both a member of the Town Council, and doing business with the town through his company, Tiga Advertising.

“It was notable to me that it was rare that a Town Council member would have a contract with a town,” Robson said.

When Robson started as town manager, he became aware of two areas of concern regarding Moffet’s contract, he said.

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“There were substantial back-payments owed to the town from this contractual relationship, and secondarily, this was a contract that had not gone out to competitive bid for many years, which would have been a standard practice,” Robson said. “Payments were late months, if not years, in this arrangement.”

Town of Vail Finance Director Kathleen Halloran also took the stand, echoing much of Robson’s statements about Moffet’s contract.

Moffet also owed the town or 55% of Tiga’s gross revenues, if that amount turned out to be more than an annual fee of $72,000. In 2018, additional revenues meant that Tiga owed $34,541 on top of the $72,000 base payment. Tiga paid the $72,000 minimum for 2018 in September and October of 2019, Halloran said, and the additional $34,541 in November of 2019.

Delay asked Halloran if she herself initiated the criminal charges against Moffet in 2023, and Halloran said she did not.

“I did not personally report him,” Halloran said. “It was not my personal decision.”

When asked whose decision it was to report Moffet to the Vail Police Department, Halloran said it was the Vail Town Council’s.

“I made the report, and staff and town council tried to work with Mr. Moffet in good faith for a long time,” Halloran said.

Delay, quoting an email from Halloran to Vail Town Attorney Matt Mire and another attorney from March 31, 2023, said the town did not want to “muck things up” with the civil trial against Moffet, which began in 2020, by pursuing criminal charges.

“It was more of a strategic question,” Delay said, quoting the email from Halloran. “If we thought we may get somewhere with the bankruptcy court, our town council didn’t want to muck things up there by jumping to criminal charges too early. They’re interested in the pursuit of that, ultimately, if it gets us some restitution.”

The trial is scheduled to continue through Thursday.