Former Aurora cop charged with raping daughter remains free as mom is sent to jail

Colorado mother objects to court-ordered reunification therapy, claims it is harmful and abusive

A retired Aurora police sergeant faces criminal charges for raping his daughter and continually sexually assaulting her and his two adopted daughters, but he remains free from custody while his ex-wife is in jail for objecting to court-ordered reunification therapy meant to repair his relationship with two of his sons.

The mother, Rachel Pickrel-Hawkins, said the reunification therapy by Christine Bassett, a licensed marriage and family therapist, has been harmful, abusive and counterproductive. For now, the mother has custody of the couple’s minor children, and they are living in a domestic violence shelter. She said that she has arranged for family members to care for her children when she goes to jail.

The mother said Bassett has supported the efforts by her ex-husband, Michael Hawkins, to gain sole custody of their two youngest sons, now 10 and 13, and has psychologically tortured the children along the way.

“The very last visit with her, I told her, ‘This man now has formal criminal charges for sex assault on children and child abuse, and you need to know this,’” Pickrel-Hawkins said of one encounter with Bassett before a reunification session with the children that the father attended. “She went into the room, and the very first thing that my boy said that she told them was, ‘We need to make progress, and today you need to tell your father that you forgive him.’”

Bassett declined comment, saying the ethics of her profession meant she could neither confirm nor deny whether she was the reunification therapist for the children, though The Denver Gazette confirmed through court records that she was court-ordered for that role.

Hawkins in court documents denied the criminal allegations of sexually abusing any of his children and of physical abuse of a child. Following the criminal filing in July, he posted a $50,000 surety bond and remains free from jail while under GPS ankle monitoring. Christopher Estoll, the lawyer representing him in the divorce and the criminal case, claimed in an Aug. 1 court filing that the mother was “not a credible witness and is highly manipulative.” Estoll could not be reached for comment.

The mother has been found in contempt of court after a judge found she continued to interfere with the reunification therapy. Her trip to jail occurs as such therapy and its potential harms are increasingly coming under fire in Colorado.

The treatment is used by family courts to settle custody fights. Services like those provided by Bassett use confrontation and exercises to deprogram a child’s rejection of a parent. In extreme cases, children have been sent across state lines to reunification camps with parents they reject, and they are barred from having contact with their protective parent.

A year ago, the Colorado legislature put new restrictions on the use of reunification therapy. The new law barred courts from restricting the custody of a parent who is competent, protective and not abusive solely to improve a relationship with the other parent. It prohibits reunification treatment that is predicated on cutting off the relationship between a child and a protective parent the child has a bond with.

State lawmakers acted after The Denver Gazette published investigations into Colorado’s troubled family court system, which has been plagued by accusations of bias, usually from mothers who say they are punished and can have their parenting time restricted during divorces when they seek to protect their children from abusive fathers.

During one troubled two-month stretch, four children were murdered in December 2022 and January 2023 by a parent embroiled in a high-conflict court custody battle. Police classified all four deaths as murder-suicides, in which fathers killed their children and then themselves.

In the case involving Hawkins, the mother has objected to reunification therapy on multiple grounds. She claimed that her ex is not fit to parent their two youngest boys, and she said she remains fearful of the reunification therapy for the children. She points to the criminal charges filed against her ex-husband as well as a Department of Human Services child protective finding that he repeatedly sexually abused their daughter, now 17, throughout her childhood, and almost drowned their older son, now 19, in 2018.

The parents have four children, three of which are minors, but the father is seeking sole custody of only the two youngest boys, aged 10 and 13. The father also adopted Pickrel-Hawkins’ two other daughters she birthed, but those children no longer are minors and aren’t subject to the custody dispute. The children who no longer are minors now are adults who have moved out on their own.

The 17-year-old daughter claims her father, Hawkins, raped her when she was almost six years old and continually molested her throughout her childhood despite her protestations that he stop, according to court documents. The two adopted daughters also claim they were sexually abused, those documents state.

The oldest son also told a forensic interviewer he felt like his father tried to drown him in a pool in 2018 in Costa Rica, using police control tactics and holding him under water until he began to black out. The boy said he believed his father was vengeful because the boy woke up one night and confronted his father whose hand he claims he saw down the under garments of his sister.\

Larimer County District Court Judge Daniel McDonald, who presided over the divorce case prior to the criminal case against Hawkins, cast doubt on the allegations of child sexual abuse and in July ordered the mother to comply with court-ordered reunification therapy aimed at restoring a relationship between the father and their two youngest boys

“The court also notes that no criminal charges have been filed and the Department of Human Services’ finding can be based on statements of the child alone with no corroborative evidence,” the judge wrote in one July 9 ruling. Testimony shows the judge was warned a criminal investigation was ongoing. However, criminal charges were later filed that same month against the father, alleging years of child sexual abuse by him.

Though the divorce judge found there was evidence that Hawkins had physically abused the oldest son, the judge said in his ruling that was “one instance that does not involve either of the two children at issue.”

The judge upheld in the ruling a previous order from another magistrate requiring weekly two-hour reunification therapy sessions aimed at restoring the boys’ relationship with their father, now facing criminal charges. The sessions cost $370 weekly. The judge ordered the mother to pay the full cost of any sessions her sons attend alone with the therapist and ordered the mother to split the cost with her ex for sessions in which he is in attendance.

The reunification therapy costs $1,500 a month. Pickrel-Hawkins said she struggles to pay for the therapy. She said she and the children already are stretched thin, surviving on the $2,680 her ex-husband pays her in court-ordered support, though the judge said during one hearing that he believed the mother actually was earning money that she wasn’t disclosing.

The mother said she lost legal representation in the custody dispute after accruing $85,000 in legal bills, which she couldn’t afford. She was sentenced to jail without any representation from a lawyer.

In the ruling on July 9, the judge found the mother, Pickrel-Hawkins, had continued to frustrate the reunification program and ordered her to show up this Saturday morning at the Larimer County Jail for a weekend of incarceration and to return to the jail for six additional weekends.

Pickrel-Hawkins, 48, surrendered to the jail on Saturday. Family court reform advocates showed up to protest and express support for her. State Rep. Meg Froehlich, a Democrat from Denver who successfully pushed state lawmakers to place new restrictions on the use of reunification therapy, attended the protest along with State Rep. Cathy Kipp, a Democrat from Fort Collins.

One of the mother's supporters set up a GoFundMe site for Pickrel-Hawkins that had raised $350 as of Saturday morning.

The judge noted in his ruling that another magistrate back in May had found the mother in contempt of court and had sentenced the mother but had suspended the sentence so long as the reunification therapy went forward. The judge found the mother interfered with the therapy again on June 25 when she refused to leave the parking lot at the reunification therapist’s office and called police for an alleged violation of a protection order barring contact between her and her ex when he showed up for the reunification therapy.

Pickrel Hawkins said it was her usual practice to wait in the parking lot for her children, whom she is court-ordered to transport to and from the sessions. She said the reunification session continued for her children that day after police asked her ex-husband to leave the session. She said she checked on her children during the session and found one of her sons curled in a fetal position on the ground in Bassett’s office, but Bassett ordered her to stop addressing what the mother termed the serious needs of her children.

A criminal case alleging child sexual abuse was filed against the father on July 29 in the 18th Judicial District following nearly two years of investigation by the Castle Rock Police Department and a prosecution investigator. Hawkins, 55, was charged with seven felony counts of sexual assault of a child by a person in a position of trust and a single count of misdemeanor child abuse. The alleged incidents extended from 2002 to 2021, according to the charging document.

The allegations span Hawkins’ tenure at the Aurora Police Department between 2005 and 2018. The daughter who claimed she was raped when she was of elementary school age told a forensic investigator the rape occurred in 2012. She said it occurred the same year that her father experienced post-traumatic stress disorder after he responded to the 2012 mass shooting at an Aurora movie theater in which 12 people were killed and 70 wounded.

Hawkins received national attention in the wake of the Aurora theater attack after he testified about carrying a dying 6-year-old girl out of the theater that night.

In 2017, a woman sued Hawkins and the Aurora Police Department, alleging she was brutalized by Hawkins and three other officers. Video of the incident showed Hawkins stomping on the woman’s head while she was on the ground. The woman claimed in her lawsuit that she was falsely accused of assaulting Hawkins and spent a week in jail, including over Christmas. Her criminal charges were dismissed. Aurora paid $335,000 to settle the lawsuit.

Hawkins medically retired from the police department in 2018 after he failed a fit-for-duty exam and was placed on medical leave.

Pickrel-Hawkins told a Castle Rock police detective she recalled that when Hawkins returned home the night of the Aurora theater shooting “his uniform was like cardboard with dried blood” and his “eyes were empty.”

She told the detective her ex “claimed all of his issues were related to the theater shooting,” but she “believes many of the issues existed beforehand.”

Pickrel-Hawkins denied any manipulation on her part and pointed out that prosecutors in the 18the Judicial District Attorney’s Office believe the allegations. She said she fears the reunification therapy is harming her boys, whom she described as crying uncontrollably, having explosive outbursts and expressing thoughts of self-harm after attending Bassett’s reunification sessions with their father.

“They can’t sleep before and after,” Pickrel-Hawkins said. “It causes major anxiety. It exacerbates their PTSD symptoms. It has absolutely been devastating to them.”

She added the reunification therapy has been “nothing but manipulation, psychological abuse. It’s been nothing but coercion and gaslighting.”

Upon the recommendation of multiple domestic violence advocates, Pickrel-Hawkins has moved herself and her three minor children into a domestic violence shelter, which is securing an apartment for them.

She said a domestic violence advocate has filed an allegation of abuse with child-protective services against the therapist, Bassett, for allegedly grabbing and squeezing her 10-year-old son’s arm roughly during one reunification therapy session when he declined to pick up a piece of trash. She said her sons also complained that the therapist won’t give them any water unless the children first provide water to their father during their reunification sessions. She said the therapist also has barred the children from bringing watches so they can monitor how long a therapy session will last.

“There were other things that the boys disclosed that qualify as abusive and coercive control,” the mother said.

The reunification therapist, Bassett, is conducting the therapy at Lighthouse Christian Counseling in Fort Collins, which advertises itself on the internet as “integrating faith into the counseling process.”

“We believe that, as we push into the hard and painful things surrounding us, God meets us with both grace and truth,” the website for Lighthouse Christian Counseling states. “It is our delight to extend that grace and truth to others, regardless of their faith journey.”

In 2022, the state board that regulates marriage and family therapists admonished Bassett in a negotiated discipline settlement for failing to have “clear disclosure before attending court.” The board ordered Bassett to attend a 14-hour ethics course.

The reunification therapy temporarily halted after Hawkins’ arraignment in August when a protection order was put in place in connection with the criminal case barring Hawkins from having any contact with his ex-wife or any of the children. The mother said the children began to improve when the reunification therapy stopped.

But last week a judge modified the protection order issued in conjunction with the criminal case to allow the father to show up for reunification therapy sessions with the two youngest boys, stating the Larimer County judge overseeing the custody dispute was best suited to determine whether those sessions should go forward.

“The court wishes to clarify with this order that by deferring that issue to the court in the Larimer County case, this court is not making a finding that there are no protective concerns regarding those children,” wrote Douglas County Court Judge Lawrence Bowling. “The court is instead finding that the Larimer County dissolution of marriage case is the more appropriate forum for determining what restrictions, if any, should be placed upon defendant’s contact with the children and for putting those restrictions in place and enforcing them.

Pickrel-Hawkins said that after the protection order was lifted, Bassett and her husband’s lawyer began sending her e-mails demanding to know when she will re-start the court-ordered reunification therapy.

Pickrel-Hawkins filed for emergency relief this week with the judge presiding over the custody dispute and divorce, seeking to overturn her jail sentence. She said she initially agreed to the reunification therapy during the divorce but began to raise objections after the therapist refused to conduct an analysis to determine the appropriateness of the reunification sessions.

She added that her efforts to find a more suitable therapist who would accept Medicaid have been rebuffed. She said her sons’ personal therapist believes the boys are regressing due to the intensity of the reunification services.

McDonald, the Larimer County judge presiding over the custody dispute, ruled this week that he would schedule a hearing to determine the appropriateness of ongoing reunification therapy, which he suspended for now, because of “changed circumstances.” He refused to lift the contempt order and ordered the mother to still serve her time in jail, stating “there has been no information provided to the court to call into question the contemptuous behavior” he found she had committed.

The sentence remains in place. Pickrel-Hawkins arranged for members of her church to accompany her as she made her way to the Larimer County Jail on Saturday.

“I am going to jail for protecting my children,” the mother texted on Thursday evening. “I won’t see them much during the week when I am released Sunday at 4 p.m., maybe a few hours in the evening.”

Throughout the week, she’ll barely have enough time to cook dinner, help them with their homework and pack lunches and get their clothes and snacks ready for the next day, she said

“No time for spending together,” her text continued. “Then wash, rinse, repeat and back to another weekend without mom. Wash, rinse, repeat, for seven weeks. An entire Fall season not seeing my children and them not seeing me, their attached, from birth, protective parent, not an abuser.”

She concluded: “I shouldn’t be going to jail. I can tell you who should.”