According to a press release from the Telluride Marshal’s Department, the reporting party “thought that a date-rape drug had been used prior to the assault,” although “testing for the presence of date-rape drugs was not able to be performed, so this information could not be confirmed.”
Regarding the more than six months that have elapsed between the date the incident was reported and Tuesday’s arrest, Telluride Chief Marshal Jim Kolar said, “It has taken that period of time for the lab results to come back” from the Colorado Bureau of Investigation.
“Actually, it was a rush,” Kolar said of the lab order. He declined to identify what type of evidence was sent to the CBI as part of the rape investigation.
Kolar emphasized that the October incident is not related in any way to several reports of possible date-rape drug ingestion that surfaced earlier this month.
“I don’t believe we have a date-rape epidemic,” Kolar said, adding that three samples collected last year and sent to the lab for analysis “had negative results” and that other laboratories on the Western Slope reported “very few coming back with positive results.”
The presence of date-rape drugs such as Gamma-HydroxyButyerate (GHP), clonazepam and Rohypnol (roofies) – prescription drugs that have crossed into the realm of illicit use, both recreationally and by predators – is almost impossible to detect within 24 hours of ingestion. Because most victims are incapacitated for at least that length of time, and because “it’s hard to say what’s going on behind the scenes that’s not being reported to us,” Kolar said, prosecution is difficult.
Cortez-Morales was booked into San Miguel County Jail on one count of Sexual Assault with a $60,000 bond.
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