Former state Rep. Wes McKinley received 90 days in the Baca County jail suspended Tuesday from one of his former high school students, District Judge Stanley Brinkley.

McKinley was found in contempt charge after filing 40 complaints and appeals over groundwater permits in Baca County in three years. Each was dismissed, until the court told him on March 13 to knock it off, unless he had a lawyer or got permission from the court before filing another objection or appeal.

“The court finds he had the ability to comply with the injunction and chose not to,” Brinkley said, as he handed down the sentence.

If he does it again, it’s off to jail he goes, Brinkley said.

“This court does not want to make you spend time in jail,” the judge told McKinley. “You know what the order is, you have the ability to comply with it, you may not want to, you may feel like you’re not going to get anywhere by doing so, and you may not.

“You cannot keep hitting your head against the wall. That isn’t going to work.”

The judge said McKinley’s testimony on the stand left little doubt he knew he was subject to the contempt order and was in violation of it.

McKinley’s legal hurdle has always been that he entered cases in which he could demonstrate standing, which means he’s materially damaged by other people’s water deals. McKinley maintains out-of-state water interests are drying up Baca County.

“A murder victim isn’t going to say he’s materially damaged,” McKinley said on the stand in the hearing in Springfield carried online by Web-X.

He’s continued to file appeals without a lawyer, and lawyers argued Tuesday whether “his actions were offensive to the authority and dignity of the court.” 

McKinley argued on the stand that the law says anybody can appeal while  a state rule says the person has to live within half a mile, and a rule can’t override a law. His complaints and appeals have sought a hearing where the state engineer would be called on to demonstrate that there is ample water in the basin to fill a specific request.

“Right after the request is granted, the property goes up for sale,” McKinley said, citing the property connected to one request he’s opposed that is listed for sale for $44 million.

Colorado Springs lawyer Justin B. Haenlein, a public defender, represented McKinley Tuesday. 

Alan Curtis, the lawyer for the private interests tired of dealing with the former lawmaker. He asked McKinley if he should be the authority when he disagrees with the court.

“If it doesn’t agree, there’s a difference of opinion and some of us are wrong — some of you are wrong,” McKinley told Curtis.

Curtis asked if the former lawmaker and teacher had any concern about wasting so much of the Groundwater Control Commission and the court’s time.

“It’s their job,” McKinley said. “I have no concern.”

He conceded his strategy had not been successful so far, but he would not say if he’s done fighting water extraction in court.

“You don’t know what trails you’re going to follow until you look down the trail,” he answered.

In his opening remarks, Curtis referenced a Colorado Politics’ Insights column, in which McKinley characterized out-of-state interests buying up water rights in Baca County as “big boys sitting out there with their fancy suits, cigars and their diamond rings and the girls on their shoulder.”

Curtis called Robbie Bullock to testify about his application and the impact of McKinley’s efforts to slow or stop him. Bullock is the owner of Campo-based Bullock Industries, a wholesale hay and alfalfa operation that includes oil and gas, as well, according to an online business profile.

He said he was trying to get the water to irrigate his farmland. McKinley’s appeals have cost his family more than $24,000 in legal fees alone to obtain permits, plus lost time to operations.

“It’s hard to say; it’s not been good,” he told the judge of the cost and aggravation.

He said he had no plans to sell the water or the land.

“We’ve worked hard and tried to put something together for the kids to be in the family, and that’s exactly what we’re trying to do.”

McKinley noted on the stand that Bullock lives in Texas and declined to withdraw his characterization of those trading in Baca County water.

Curtis said, “Mr. McKinley seems to be posing himself as some hero of the working man and he’s costing actual working people tens of thousands of dollars in lost crops and lost time as a result of this.”

He said he didn’t want the 75-year-old to go to jail, however. “I just don’t want him to do it again,” Curtis said.

He said fining him wouldn’t do any good, because McKinley doesn’t have any assets, and he hasn’t paid up in the past, but something has to be done.

“He seems to think because he doesn’t have anything, he can do whatever he wants and the court can’t do anything about it,” he said.

McKinley told Colorado Politics before the hearing he served nearly 100 hamburgers to supporters outside the courthouse before Tuesday afternoon’s hearing.

Staff writer Marianne Goodland contributed to this story.