AURORA | Witnesses on Monday told an Arapahoe County jury how a child-abuse probe targeting an Aurora City Council member evolved into an investigation of the former social worker accused of fabricating the allegations.
Robin Niceta, who is the ex-girlfriend of Aurora’s former police chief, was charged in May 2022 with attempt to influence a public servant, a fourth-degree felony, and making a false report of child abuse, a third-degree misdemeanor. Her trial on those charges commenced Monday at the Arapahoe County Justice Center in Centennial.
Prosecutors characterized the bogus tip as an act of vengeance by Niceta, who at the time was dating former Aurora Police Department chief Vanessa Wilson while employed as a caseworker for Arapahoe County’s Department of Human Services.
Niceta allegedly called an Arapahoe County hotline to accuse Councilmember Danielle Jurinsky of child sex abuse in January 2022, posing as an employee at one of Jurinsky’s restaurants. The day before, Jurinsky had criticized Wilson’s leadership of APD while speaking on a regional talk-radio show.
“Robin Niceta was getting revenge for her then-girlfriend,” prosecutor Daniel Cohen said. “And when Ms. Niceta made that hotline call falsely, accusing Ms. Jurinsky of sexual abuse against a child, not only did she commit an egregious and terrifying act of personal vengeance against Danielle Jurinsky, but she illegally attempted to influence every one of the public servants who works at the Department of Human Services.”
Frank Moya, a defense attorney representing Niceta, acknowledged there was no truth to the allegation that Jurinsky sexually molested her own son. However, Moya insisted prosecutors couldn’t prove that the call to the county hotline was made by Niceta, even though it was traced back to Niceta’s personal cell phone.
Moya instead argued, without a promise of evidence, that Wilson herself made the call using Niceta’s phone, saying the former police chief had access to the phone and knew the password.
“Just because a call came from Ms. Niceta’s phone does not mean that Ms. Niceta made the phone call,” Moya said. “Who really had the motive for making this false phone call? Was it my client, or was it the chief of police, who Ms. Jurinsky called a piece of ‘trash’ on the radio? I would submit it was the chief of police.”
A jury of nine men and four women, including one alternate, were seated shortly before noon. Judge Eric Elliff of Denver presided over the trial, which is scheduled to last through Wednesday, though attorneys speculated at the end of the day that the jury may start deliberations as early as Tuesday.
While the charges were brought in the 18th Judicial District, the original judge, David Karpel, recused himself after Niceta allegedly pretended to have brain cancer to try to beat the charges associated with the fake child abuse tip, making Karpiel a fellow victim of Niceta’s deception.
Niceta and her mother, Janice Dudley, were indicted in July for the brain cancer scheme, which involved creating a website for an apparently fictitious oncology clinic in New Mexico.
Niceta’s supposed illness was not mentioned Monday. Though Niceta’s attorneys previously provided the court with medical records — now believed to be forgeries — which said Niceta couldn’t communicate due to a brain tumor, she answered multiple questions asked by Elliff and confirmed that she was thinking clearly as she was advised of her right to testify or not testify in her own defense.
Three prosecution witnesses described how the tip to the county hotline was investigated and eventually determined to be meritless.
Michelle Dossey, the child and adult protection services division manager for Arapahoe County’s Department of Human Services, testified that Niceta’s primary focus as a caseworker was child sexual abuse and that Niceta had worked for the county for five years at the time the call was made.
Dossey also vouched for the authenticity of a recording of the Jan. 28, 2022, call to the hotline, which was played for jurors.
In the recording, the female caller, who identifies herself as an employee of a sports bar owned by Jurinsky, said she saw Jurinsky masturbate her toddler son and also described a separate incident where Jurinsky exposed her son’s penis to a group of employees.
The caller said she wanted to remain anonymous because she was afraid of retaliation by Jurinsky but felt she had to report the incident “just to get it off my head, so I can sleep.”
“Something like this could really create psychological damage for that young boy,” the caller said.
Dossey said she had multiple conversations with Niceta at work prior to the incident and that she was “absolutely sure” the voice in the recording was Niceta’s. During cross-examination by Moya, she rated her certainty that the voice was Niceta’s as “9” out of 10.
Jurinsky was among the witnesses called by the prosecution. She said her “mind went a little blank” when a county investigator reached out a few days after the hotline call and explained that she had been accused of molesting her son.
“I started crying immediately, and I started trying to defend myself, saying I would never do this, and this doesn’t even make sense,” Jurinsky said.
The caseworker interviewed Jurinsky and her parents about Jurinsky’s treatment of her son. Jurinsky also signed off on letting the caseworker interview her son’s teacher and pediatrician. She cried as she recalled telling her son’s teacher that she was under investigation for child sexual abuse.
“I couldn’t even get all of the words out,” she said. “Having this looming investigation over me, not knowing if they’re coming to take my son, not knowing what’s going on in this investigation, I couldn’t sleep. I couldn’t eat. At one point, I had to take my son to my parents, because I couldn’t even look at him without crying.”
Dossey also said in response to a question from Cohen that such investigations can be “incredibly difficult and challenging for parents and for kids.”
Finally, in February, Jurinsky said she received an email from the county caseworker informing her that no evidence had been found to substantiate the allegations made in the hotline call.
Jurinsky said she initially suspected that the tip was in retaliation for her comments about Wilson, given the fact that her radio appearance and the investigation occurred back-to-back.
She said she first became aware of Niceta, her employment with the county and her connection to Wilson when she received a Facebook message from an ex-girlfriend of Niceta’s — Kristin Nichols, who earlier this year sued Wilson and the city, alleging that Wilson and Niceta worked together to frame her for domestic violence.
“I felt like the lightbulb had gone off in my head, and I now knew who had done this to my family,” Jurinsky said.
Jurinsky said she shared her concerns with Arapahoe County Commissioner Jeff Baker. Dossey was informed of these concerns by her director. She was subsequently able to find Niceta’s personal cell phone number and — on April 17, 2022 — realized the same number was behind the tip to the county hotline.
Dossey said she contacted her director, the county’s attorney and the Arapahoe County Human Resources Department to report the discovery.
Johnnie Turnidge, an Arapahoe County Sheriff’s Office deputy, said he began investigating Niceta in April and requested phone records that confirmed a call was placed from her cell phone to the hotline after the caller tried to conceal their phone number by dialing “star-six-seven.”
Cohen said Niceta also used Google to look up information about Jurinsky minutes before the call was placed, including Jurinsky’s address and businesses, as well as questions about whether the child abuse hotline recorded the phone numbers of callers.
During a May 2022 interrogation that was recorded and played for jurors Monday, Niceta denied knowledge of the call but said only she and Wilson would have had access to her phone.
“I have no basis to do this,” Niceta said in the recording. “Yeah, she was a jerk to Vanessa, but that’s not my world. It is not my world. Vanessa’s got to handle her own things. … I promise I did not do this.”
“I want to believe you. I really do. I just can’t. I can’t with the evidence that I have,” Turnidge replied.
Niceta also rejected the suggestion that Wilson would have made the call. Moya did not call any witnesses Monday to support the assertion that Wilson was the one who called the county hotline.
She should pay for what she did
Having personal experience with Robin I know with out a doubt she is guilty. It’s not the first time she’s accused another woman of crimes they didn’t commit to soothe her own bruised ego. She is a liar and has no regrets whatsoever for her.