$2 million bond set for teens charged in Denver-area rock-throwing spree

Prosecutors unsuccessfully requested the judge set bond at $10 million, arguing the teens’ release from jail would put the community at risk

BY OLIVIA PRENTZEL COLORADO SUN

A judge set a $2 million cash-only bond Wednesday for each of the three teens charged with firstdegree murder in a rock-throwing spree that killed 20-year-old Alexa Bartell and injured several others. Joseph Koenig, Nicholas “Mitch” Karol-Chik and Zachary Kwak, all 18, must also surrender their passport and driver’s license, comply with protection orders against victims in the case, are prohibited from drinking alcohol and must be monitored by GPS, 1st Judicial District Court Judge Christopher

Zenisek said during a hearing Wednesday morning in Jefferson County.

Zenisek denied a request to set bond at $10 million by the prosecution, who argued that the three young men’s actions “was indiscriminate murder” and that their release from jail would put the community at risk.

“There’s no amount that will alleviate the pain that the victims are feeling and have expressed here and I am sorry for your loss, and there is no amount that adequately will symbolize the importance of that individual to this community,” Zenisek said. “So, that’s not what the court is seeking to do here. This is a different task before the court that is to set bond appropriately as the court must do with regard to each of these individuals before the court.”

All three men have been held in jail without bond since they were arrested in their respective Arvada homes late April.

They are suspected of throwing large rocks at a string of cars shortly after 10 p.m. on April 19 in Westminster.