A Colorado police chief has been placed on administrative leave after his stepson and three men were accused of raping a 17-year-old girl in his home while he slept upstairs.
The city of Ouray announced Monday that Police Chief Jeff Wood would remain on leave “pending the outcome of the criminal proceedings of the alleged rape” during a May 2023 party the stepson threw at Wood’s home.
The city did not clarify the exact reason why Wood was asked to step down, but the move comes more than a week after a man unsuccessfully tried to smother a local newspaper’s reporting on the alleged crime by stealing stacks of papers from its racks, instead amplifying the story to nation-wide attention.
The city had previously stated that it had been monitoring the case and Wood’s familial ties to it since Wood was first made aware of the investigation in July 2023.
Wood did not immediately respond to The Post’s request for comment.
His stepson, Nate Dieffenderffer, 18, was arrested in December along with Gabriel Trujillo, 20, and Ashton Whittington, 18, with felony sexual assault, a case that is being handled by the Colorado Bureau of Investigation.
Dieffenderffer is accused of initiating a night-long gang rape horror after a 17-year-old guest at a party he was throwing at Wood’s home passed out from intoxication.
The police chief’s stepson restrained her when she tried to fight back and scream before he and Trujillo dragged her into the bathroom and took turns violently abusing her, according to an arrest affidavit.
Whittington allegedly did not participate but did not intervene.
The next morning, the survivor woke up naked and grabbed a sweatshirt from a pile of laundry, which turned out to belong to Wood. His DNA turned up in a subsequent investigation, but not in a significant amount to reflect wrongdoing.
According to the victim, the police chief was home the entire time, but slept throughout the hours-long torture.
Wood told The Post last week that he “was first made aware of [the rape allegations] approximately two months after the incident was alleged to have occurred.”
“I anticipate being called as a witness at trial so I feel it is not appropriate to comment on the plausibility of the young lady’s allegations at this time,” Wood said in a statement over email.
The charges became widely known when a local restaurant owner stole hundreds of copies of the Ouray County Plaindealer on Jan. 18, the morning it ran a front-page story on the horrifying accusations.
Paul Choate, 41, accused the Plaindealer of attempting to profit off the story and claimed on social media he pulled off the heist to protect the victim.
Shockingly, Choate does not appear to have any ties to the police department, Wood, his stepson or the other three men named in the criminal case.
The upsetting case had triggered intense calls from the community for Wood to resign.
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