Sarabia-Martinez

── Sarabia-Martinez ── Court: Colorado Court of Appeals Date: May 28, 2026 Category: General 24CA0818 Peo v Sarabia-Martinez 05-28-2026 COLORADO COURT OF APPEALS Court of Appeals No. 24CA0818 City and County of Denver District Court No. 14CR10280 Honorable Alex C. Myers, Judge The People of the State of Colorado, Plaintiff-Appellee, v. Jose Ricardo Sarabia-Martinez, Defendant-Appellant. ORDER AFFIRMED Division VI Opinion by JUDGE GOMEZ Moultrie and Berger*, JJ., concur NOT PUBLISHED PURSUANT TO C.A.R. 35(e) Announced May 28, 2026 Philip J. Weiser, Attorney General, Brittany Limes Zehner, Senior Assistant Attorney General and Assistant Solicitor General, Denver, Colorado, for Plaintiff-Appellee Tara Jorfald, Alternate Defense Counsel, Bryan Collins, Alternate Defense Counsel, Lakewood, Colorado, for Defendant-Appellant *Sitting by assignment of the Chief Justice under provisions of Colo. Const. art. VI, § 5(3), and § 24-51-1105, C.R.S. 2025. ¶1 Defendant, Jose Ricardo Sarabia-Martinez, appeals the trial court’s order imposing $1,077,217.94 in restitution after a jury found him guilty of violations of the Colorado Organized Crime Control Act (COCCA) and other crimes stemming from a fraudulent mortgage scheme carried out by his family business. He contends that the trial court erred by (1) unreasonably delaying its issuance of the order; and (2) ordering an amount of restitution that exceeded the original amount awarded, before he obtained reversal of his convictions in an earlier appeal and was retried. We reject both contentions and, therefore, affirm. I. Background ¶2 Sarabia-Martinez and several of his family members ran a fraudulent mortgage scheme through a series of family-owned businesses. The scheme generally involved the use of a straw buyer to purchase a residential property and then sell it to a second straw buyer at a higher price. That second buyer would obtain a mortgage loan through false representations and wouldn’t make any payments on the loan, causing it to go into foreclosure, but not before the family business netted the proceeds from the second 1  sale, as well as other fees and commissions for its handling of both closing processes. ¶3 Sarabia-Martinez was eventually indicted by a grand jury on nineteen criminal counts. After his first trial, he was convicted on several counts and sentenced to a term of twenty-four years in the custody of the Department of Corrections (DOC). The prosecution requested, and the trial court granted, an award of $951,571.57 in restitution for losses suffered by the Small Business Administration (SBA), which had guaranteed a loan on a commercial property the family business used as an office, and by the lenders that had extended loans on the five residential properties at issue in the case. On direct appeal, a division of this court reversed the judgment and ordered a new trial due to the erroneous admission of evidence. People v. Sarabia-Martinez, (Colo. App. No. 16CA2134, Dec. 19, 2019) (not published pursuant to C.A.R. 35(e)). ¶4 After a retrial in August 2022, Sarabia-Martinez was again convicted on most of the same charges, including two COCCA counts, six forgery counts, and one criminal impersonation count. The prosecution again sought restitution for the SBA and the lenders. 2 ¶5 On the date the sentencing hearing was initially scheduled, the parties agreed to continue that hearing as well as the scheduled restitution hearing due to delays in receiving the presentence investigation report, Sarabia-Martinez’s anticipated filing of post- trial motions (for which he was awaiting trial transcripts), and his request to obtain rulings on those motions before sentencing. The court, apparently assuming at the