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Attack ad star faces charges

Warrant cites felony mischief, menacing

Alan Gathright, Rocky Mountain News

Published October 7, 2006 at midnight

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A week before September Dixon starred in a Republican TV attack ad calling Democratic gubernatorial candidate Bill Ritter a liar who cared more about the hit-and-run driver who killed her daughter than the victims, she was accused of trying to run down her ex-boyfriend and his woman companion.

"I am going to run you both over, and I'm going to kill you both," Dixon shouted in the Sept. 13 confrontation before allegedly making separate attempts to run down the man and woman outside an Aurora bar, according to an arrest warrant issued for Dixon this week by an Adams County judge.

The 27-year-old Dixon is charged in the arrest warrant with one count of felony criminal mischief for allegedly ramming the man's car and two counts of felony menacing for allegedly using her car to make the couple fear for their safety.

Dixon had not been arrested by late Friday and could not be reached for comment.

Alan Philp, head of the Republican Trailhead Group that paid for the five-day ad, said he didn't think Dixon's latest run-in with the law and her lengthy criminal history undercut the credibility of her criticism of Ritter, the former Denver district attorney in the TV spot. The ad stopped running last week.

"Remember, this is about a little girl who got killed and getting justice for her," Philp said. "Other family members who were involved in negotiation discussions (with Ritter's office) verify the account."

In the hardest-hitting ad in the governor's race, the tearful mother accused then-DA Ritter of giving a "slap on the wrist" sentence to the hit-and-run driver who killed her 4-year-old daughter during a Mother's Day stroll in 2000.

"I think Bill Ritter cares more about the people who commit the crimes and not the people that suffer," Dixon said in the ad. "He also lied and said that I agreed to a plea bargain that I never agreed to."

Ritter and the district attorney's office maintained that Dixon agreed to the plea bargain that sentenced the driver to two years, but had a change of heart.