Manny Rutinel faced intense criticism from the Gazette Editorial Board, which said defeating the legislation would ‘bring in people who sell children for sex’
The Democratic nominee in Colorado’s competitive Eighth Congressional District, Manny Rutinel, helped kill legislation that would have imposed mandatory prison sentences on pedophiles convicted of crimes such as having sex with child prostitutes and pimping minors.
The 2024 bill would have slapped adults convicted of crimes involving child prostitutes with at least four years in prison for class-three felonies—like soliciting—and eight years for class-two felonies like coercing a minor into prostitution. But Rutinel joined his fellow Democrats on the house State, Civic, Military and Veterans Affairs Committee to kill it before it even made it to the full floor.
The Gazette Editorial Board blasted Rutinel by name and accused the Democrats of rolling “out a welcome mat for perverts.” The board said killing the bill would “bring in people who sell children for sex and those who patronize them.”
“Without this bill, adults who buy or rent child prostitutes face penalties that often result in little or no incarceration,” the board wrote in an editorial titled “House Democrats kill the bill against raping children.”
Just a month after the vote, in fact, a man from Commerce City, Colo.—where Rutinel lives—avoided any jail time after pleading guilty to soliciting for child prostitution and a cybercrime. Prosecutors said Daniel Goodfield negotiated to pay for sex with two girls—one was 14—in online chatrooms, not realizing they were actually undercover investigators. Police were waiting for him when he entered a hotel room to meet them.
Goodfield struck a deal with the district attorney that landed him probation and a six-year deferred sentence.
Details of Rutinel’s vote come as the Democrat vies to unseat Republican incumbent Gabe Evans, a former police officer, in Colorado’s Eighth Congressional District, which is expected to be one of the nation’s closest races and could determine which party controls the House. Rutinel has faced heat for a number of other bills that critics say favor criminals, such as his support for legislation that allowed violent offenders to walk free if they were deemed unfit to stand trial for an extended period and taxpayer funding for sex changes for prisoners.
The Gazette delivered a scathing rebuke of Rutinel and the Democrats who voted against the child prostitution bill.
“It seems inconceivable that elected officials would signal Colorado as a friendly state for adults to have sex with children – which is always rape – who are sold by foreign cartels and domestic sociopathic profiteers,” the editorial board wrote. The vote is “another sign how out of touch these progressive criminal justice reformers are with the electorate.”
The board also noted that more than 50 witnesses, including survivors who shared “heart-wrenching testimony about working as child sex slaves,” came to the committee hearing to support the bill. The district attorney of Colorado’s 18th Judicial District, John Kellner, said minors rescued from prostitution were, on average, 13 years old.
A bill with similar language was signed into law earlier this year but went to the state house floor through a different committee. This time, Rutinel supported it as a cosponsor. The new legislation, however, removed a four-year mandatory minimum sentence for anyone convicted of soliciting sex. Instead, the Colorado General Assembly “encourages courts” to issue a four-year sentence and requires probation to last for a year if probation is part of the sentence.
In an emailed statement, Rutinel told the Washington Free Beacon, “No parent should ever fear their child’s safety. That’s why I co-sponsored and passed the improved, bipartisan SB26-015 to hold predators accountable.”
“On the 2024 bill, I heard concerns that it could have punished victims, which was a red line for me,” he wrote.
His opposition to the original version wasn’t his only soft-on-crime vote in 2024. He also helped pass a law that ordered prosecutors to drop charges if a defendant is deemed unlikely to gain competency in the foreseeable future—regardless of whether the defendant seeks care.
In April 2025, Debisa Ephraim, also known as Ephraim Debisa, walked free after video captured him knocking out two men on separate occasions, each bashing their heads on hard surfaces on the way down, and continuing to beat their faces as they lay unconscious, the Free Beacon reported. He already had a long rap sheet, including an instance in which he walked into a house party and pressed a pistol against someone’s ribcage and threatened their life.
Rutinel also voted to dole out $12 million in taxpayer money for prisoners’ “transgender healthcare,” including sex-change surgeries. The funds were provided in appropriations bills between 2024 and 2026 and earned Rutinel’s support each year.
He also backed legislation this year that included an order for courts to consider whether a parent uses their child’s preferred pronouns when ruling on custody battles. That language was removed before the Colorado General Assembly passed the bill, which primarily focused on how Colorado handles preferred pronouns, such as on official documents like birth certificates.
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