A former investigative consultant is again set to stand trial next month, nearly two years after she was arrested on suspicion of providing methamphetamine and fentanyl to an inmate during professional visits.
Laura Tellers, 54, has a 10-day trial slated to begin Nov. 3. She faces five counts of conspiracy to introduce contraband and three counts of conspiracy to distribute a controlled substance, court records show.
The November trial is the fifth that has been scheduled in Tellers’ case since she was arrested in November 2023 and pleaded not guilty just three months later.
The delays have stemmed primarily from a special master appointed to redact Tellers’ cellphone records to prevent providing the Weld District Attorney’s Office with an extraction containing privileged information.
Prosecutors first received the extraction on July 9, 2024, less than two weeks before Tellers’ original trial was set to kick off.
Then, while going through the extraction in early August, lead investigator Michael Prill — who was assigned to go through the extraction for the prosecution — came across privileged files he believed he was not supposed to see. Prill stopped going through the records and notified all parties of what happened, according to several findings.
In December, Tellers’ trial was again delayed when her defense filed a motion in the Colorado Supreme Court requesting the prosecution be required to show cause as to why the court was correct in not disqualifying the district attorney’s office from the case the first time the defense request the office be removed, among other things.
A pair of trials scheduled this year — one in May and one in June — were also delayed due to the prosecution not being able to adequately review records from Tellers’ cellphone.
“The phone, which has led to all these issues,” Tellers’ attorney Lee Christian said in a Dec. 17 hearing. “Never has one piece of evidence led to so many issues.”
Tellers is accused of providing Marquise Daniels, 30, meth and fentanyl in documents addressed to him during professional visits. Daniels would then use rubber bands to strap the drugs to himself and smuggle them back into the jail, according to Tellers’ arrest affidavit.
Daniels, who was in jail on suspicion of murdering Blaire McQueen, took plea deals in both the murder and drug smuggling cases last month and is set to spend 60 years in prison.
Tellers was working for Sedlak Law, which was representing Daniels in the murder case. Tellers has since been removed from the Sedlak Law website’s list of staff.
Along with Daniels and Tellers, four others were charged as part of what police called a “drug trafficking organization.” All four have pleaded guilty as part of plea deals, court records show.
Tellers has a hearing at 3 p.m. Friday in Weld County District Court to discuss technology issues surrounding the phone extraction ahead of her trial. The trial is set to run Nov. 3-17 in Division 17 of Weld County District Court.
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