Friends charged after driving a Toronto-born dead man to bar, strip club

Friends charged after driving a Toronto-born dead man to bar, strip club


Robert Young and Mark Rubinson are accused of driving around with a dead friend, Jeffrey Jarrett, using his ATM card and visiting Shotgun Willie's and another bar.

The police statement says the accused, Robert Young and Mark Rubinson, didn’t have the “consent and permission” of Jeffrey Jarrett to put their bar, gas and strip-club bills on his bank card.

That’s because the Toronto-born realtor was dead.

Riding around in the back of Rubinson’s car, but dead.

“This is fairly unusual,” conceded Denver District Attorney’s Office spokeswoman Lyn Kimbrough to the Star on Friday.

“We were caught a little by surprise” by stories this week in the Denver media following Young and Rubinson’s arrest, Kimbrough said.

“The coverage seems to ignore the fact that the death was of a real person. Folks from my office are reaching out to the family. I don’t know how much detail they were aware of.”

Jarrett, a 43-year-old hockey loving father of one son, was found dead in his Denver home by Young, a Colorado State University buddy and friend, around 11 p.m. on Aug. 27, said an affidavit filed by Denver Police Det. Ranjan Ford.

Young, 43, fetched another friend, 25-year-old Rubinson. Then, like a script ripped from Weekend at Bernie’s, they hauled Jarrett’s body into Rubinson’s Lincoln Navigator and “all three parties,” according to Ford, drove to Teddy T’s, a Mexican bar and grill.

Young and Rubinson drink for an hour and a half and pay with Jarrett’s bank card. Jarrett is lying in the back of the Navigator.

“It was obvious Jarrett was dead while all three were at Teddy T’s,” Ford said Young told him.

The trio made for Sam’s No. 3, the diner where Rubinson works, to “hang out” then back to Jarrett’s house where the man is finally laid to rest on his own bed.

But the party goes on, with a Mexican meal at Viva Burrito, a gas-station stop and, finally, to the strip club Shotgun Willie’s, said Ford.

On the way home, they flag down a police officer and tell him Jarrett might be at home, dead.

He is, said Ford, “obviously deceased.” Neither is charged in Jarrett’s death.

“This is a bizarre and unfortunate crime,” Denver Police Department spokesman Sonny Jackson told the Denver Post.

“This isn't anything you want to have happen to a loved one. You want them treated with respect in death.”

“I'm horrified, I'm absolutely, I can’t even put in to words, I can’t imagine anybody thinking that maybe their friend is in trouble and not calling 911,” TV station KKTV quoted a relative as saying.

Jarrett was buried Sept. 1 with dozens of heartfelt and anguished condolences offered in an online guest book. A note from the family spoke of a man “proud of his Canadian roots” whose “pride and joy” was his son Cameron.

Born in Toronto, Jarrett grew up in Colorado, where his father Gary still lives.

Young and Rubinson, arrested Aug. 28, have been charged with identity theft, unauthorized use of a debit card, and abuse of a corpse and released on bail with separate court appearances Sept. 27 and Oct. 4.