Support truly
independent journalism
MAGA congresswoman Lauren Boebert was reportedly pulled over for speeding in May and then failed to pay her fine on time, causing her case to be escalated to court.
Boebert, who recently won the Republican nomination for the US House in Colorado’s 4th Congressional District, was driving on the Vail Pass portion of I-70 westbound in Colorado on May 12, the Colorado State Patrol told CBS.
It was around 10:05 a.m. when she was caught driving 84 mph in her black Mazda CX-50, speeding 19 mph over the 65 mph speed limit.
As a result, the Republican was issued a $174.50 ticket with no other charges on her citation, state patrol said.
Colorado’s Department of Revenue mandates that tickets must be paid off within 20 days of the violation to prevent the citation from being sent to court.
If a ticket is more than 40 days old, the department says it can no longer accept payment, and the case will be referred to court.
Court records seen by CBS show that Boebert had her citation referred to an Eagle County court due to a late payment.
Drew Sexton, the congresswoman’s campaign manager, confirmed that the speeding ticket was eventually paid off on July 3.
Sexton also told Westword, a Denver publication, that Boebert had sent a check for the ticket to the revenue department rather than paying it through the online system, but the check somehow wound up being sent back to her.
The spokesperson said it was unclear why she sent a check rather than using the online system.
“I don’t know what happened before the ticket came to us,” an Eagle County court clerk told the local outlet. "She called and said, ‘I have a ticket with a court date and I need to take care of it.’ She contacted the court on July 3 and paid it online."
The court records reportedly show that the case was closed on July 9 with a plea agreement.
This is not the first time Boebert has had a brush with the law over her actions behind the wheel.
She recalled another incident from 2016, when she and her husband were driving home after closing up her restaurant, in her 2022 book My American Life in a chapter titled ‘Pretty Little Mugshots.’
In order to get home, she said she had to drive up Stephens Hills, “the steepest and most dangerous road in town.”
“It’s a tough drive during the day, but especially so at night. There’s a tight hairpin turn with no guardrail where plenty of people have had accidents; some have even died,” she wrote. “With that in mind, I drove slowly up the hill, but danger was literally around the corner as my front wheel caught the edge of the shoulder, and the truck slid off the side and flipped into a ditch fifteen feet below.”
Boebert and her husband left the crash site and walked home to call in the accident. When they returned to the scene to meet with a state trooper, he cited her for reckless driving.
Months later, Boebert found herself in a position that many parents have faced: She was running late to drop her kids off at school. She admits that she started speeding as she rushed to drop them off — and got pulled over by a police officer.
She soon learned that there was a warrant out for her arrest as she had failed to pay her first ticket for reckless driving on the night she flipped her truck, and she was arrested.
"This was not a proud mom moment," she wrote.
Despite laying out in detail all of the extenuating circumstances and perceived injustices that colored her arrests, Boebert does take responsibility for her actions near the end of the chapter.
"But when it gets down to it, I don’t really have an excuse. I should have shown up to court. I should paid the tickets on time. I should have shown law enforcement the respect they deserve," she wrote. "I should have played by the rules."
The Independent has contacted Boebert’s campaign for further comment.
