Ely Ryszkowski, a 19 year-old Granby man arrested April 15 after a police chase, faces additional charges from a burglary and two attempts at escaping the Grand County Jail, according to affidavits for arrest warrants.

Nine days before allegedly stealing a car in Kremmling and leading police on a chase that ended near Tabernash, Ryszkowski is also accused of robbing a laundromat in Granby. Around 6 a.m. on April 6, tenants who live in the same building as the laundromat woke up to loud noises from inside the business.

One tenant says they went to the front of the laundromat and saw someone hitting a bill changer machine with a metal pipe. The tenant thought she recognized the man, called out a name and the man ran out of the laundromat through a back door. 

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Granby Police started their investigation looking for the man who the tenant thought they had seen, but that man was in jail at the time of the crime. Another suspect had $59.75 worth of quarters and told officers Ryszkowski had given him the money to pay back a debt. 

Officers called Ryszkowski, who claimed he had the large quantity of quarters because he and his girlfriend collect coins they find while taking walks. When officers then visited Ryszkowski in person, they found that Ryszkowski had another bag of quarters totalling $64.50. He again stated he had the large quantity because he collected coins.

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An officer then spoke to Ryszkowski’s girlfriend, who said she and Ryszkowski do collect coins, but she was surprised at the large amount he possessed. The officer confronted Ryszkowski with that information, another told him to be honest and Ryszkowski admitted to taking the quarters from the laundromat, according to an affidavit.

Ryszkowski claimed another man had forced him to break into the laundromat, threatening his life with a gun. 

Police did not arrest Ryszkowski at that time, but an affidavit for arrest warrant filed after his April 15 arrest lists offenses related to the laundromat burglary, including a Class 4 felony for burglary, a Class 5 felony for criminal mischief and a Class 2 misdemeanor for theft.

Charges for attempted escape

The day law enforcement arrested Ryszkowski after he allegedly led them on a chase, crashed a stolen vehicle and unlawfully entered a residence, he arrived at the Grand County Jail around 10:55 a.m. By 11:50 a.m., Ryszkowski had escaped his cell and made his way to the jail’s kitchen, allegedly.

The affidavit says that Ryszkowski had torn a plastic foam cup into bits and wedged them into the door frame and disabled the door’s locking feature. He opened the door, went to the kitchen and spoke to inmate workers preparing lunch. Ryszkowski asked workers if there was anywhere he could hide, but the workers offered little help.

On security cameras, deputies saw Ryszkowski in the kitchen, and one deputy went to find him. Ryszkowski hid in a pantry, but inmate workers alerted the deputy to Ryszkowski’s hiding spot. The deputy took Ryszkowski back into custody and put him in a different cell than the one from which he escaped, according to arrest records.

Sergeants took Ryszkowski out of his cell two more times April 1 to complete the booking process and gave him another plastic foam cup of water after taking him out the second time around 7 p.m. They put him in the cell he had allegedly escaped from earlier that day.

The next day around 2:20 p.m., deputies say they saw Ryszkowski out of his cell once again. A deputy followed Ryszkowski, who turned into an office to hide, but the deputy took him back into custody and back to the cell deputies had put Ryszkowski in after his first alleged escape.

Deputies looked in the cell from which Ryszkowski escaped and found more fragments of a plastic foam cup, leading them to believe he used the same tactic for both of his escapes.

Around 3:05 p.m. that day, cameras showed Ryszkowski ripping up his T-shirt. He claimed he was using pieces of the shirt to wipe himself after he defecated, and an affidavit for arrest warrant states it is unknown if ripping the shirt was part of another escape attempt.

From these incidents, the affidavit requests a warrant for two Class 5 felony counts for attempting to escape and one petty offense for criminal mischief, which comes from the destruction of property Ryszkowski committed by tearing up his jail-issued shirt.

On April 25, Ryszkowski appeared in court, and 14th Judicial District Judge Nicholas Catanzarite set his bond at $20,000 cash or surety and issued a protection order that bars Ryszkowski from going near the laundromat. His next court appearance is set for early May.