Colorado authorities are investigating allegations of elder abuse involving 83-year-old actor John Amos, who for years has been living near the mountain town of Westcliffe.
The Colorado Bureau of Investigation is looking into this matter, along with the sheriff in Custer County. Amos resides in a modest wood-paneled home northeast of town.
“The Custer County Sheriff’s Office is the lead on it. We are just assisting them. It is an open investigation right now,” CBI spokeswoman Lisa Kohlbrenner confirmed on Friday. She said Custer County Sheriff Rich Smith requested the bureau’s assistance on May 15.
Smith on Friday confirmed, in a news release, that local authorities received reports that Amos could have been the victim of a crime.
“We are thoroughly investigating that allegation and have consulted with our partners at the Colorado Bureau of Investigation and Department of Human Services,” Smith said. “We have also been in contact with Mr. Amos and his attorney.”
Amos was in a Tennessee hospital as a patient.
Westcliffe residents said they’re praying for him. “We really want him to get better. We’re so lucky he is part of our community,” county spokeswoman Jennifer Kriegh said.
Longtime friend Les Franklin of Denver, who formerly managed Amos as an actor from 1970 to 1972, said he spoke with him this week by phone.
“He’s doing good now. The doctor says he’s doing good. He was in really bad shape when he got there,” Franklin said, lauding friends in Westcliffe for taking Amos to doctors in Pueblo and Colorado Springs.
While Amos has been interested in acting work, he also has relied on artificial oxygen in recent years. Franklin said Amos now may move to New Jersey, where he grew up the son of an auto mechanic, to receive closer care.
“He needs 24-hour care,” he said. “He loved sitting on the front porch of that house looking out at the Sangre de Cristo Mountains. He loved that. He liked the people around Westcliffe. They were all kind to him and embraced him. There’s not one person in Westcliffe who ever mistreated John,” Franklin said.
A daughter went public with accusations that he was the victim of abuse but Amos reportedly has rejected this, according to reports in several entertainment-oriented publications. A prolific actor who played the adult Kunta Kinte in the 1977 miniseries Roots and later starred in “American Dad” and “Good Times,” Amos once had homes in California and New Jersey but has been living for about six years in Colorado. Decades ago, he played football at Colorado State University and graduated from CSU with a degree in sociology, then signed with the Denver Broncos and briefly played professional football with other teams in the 1960s before beginning his career as an actor.
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