Rep. Lauren Boebert's 21-year-old son Tyler now faces three felony counts of child sexual exploitation in Colorado, the latest in a string of criminal charges that have dogged him since his teens.
Colorado court records entered on August 6 show Tyler Boebert charged with three counts of sexual exploitation of a child, including a video charge, along with two counts of contributing to the delinquency of a minor. He was released on a $10,000 bond and is scheduled to appear in Garfield County District Court on August 19. He has not entered a plea.
The charges stem from a video Tyler allegedly recorded involving himself and a 17-year-old girl. He was 18 at the time. Court records list the alleged felonies as occurring on January 1, 2024, though People magazine separately reported the video was filmed on February 1, 2024. The source of that one-month discrepancy is unclear.
The girl reported the video to police the following day, according to an affidavit referenced in the case, after her ex-boyfriend received a copy. The girl's mother later told authorities the 43-second recording had been posted to Instagram. The Rifle Police Department took Tyler's mugshot on February 27, 2024.
Rep. Lauren Boebert, a Colorado Republican, addressed the charges in a statement to the Daily Mail:
"I love my son. We take these allegations very seriously and pray for everyone affected during this challenging time."
The sexual exploitation case is far from Tyler Boebert's first run-in with the law. In February, he was charged with misdemeanor child abuse without injury after his two-year-old son, Josiah, walked out of Lauren Boebert's home in Windsor, Colorado, unsupervised. The home sits near a lake. A woman found the toddler and secured him before authorities arrived.
That incident was itself the second child abuse charge against Tyler in less than a year. On July 11 of the prior year, Windsor police cited him for leaving Josiah unattended and charged him with criminal negligence where no death or injury occurred, the New York Post reported.
Lauren Boebert told 9News at the time of the February child abuse charge that there was "no excuse" for her son's actions and that she was "very frustrated this happened." She described the Windsor incident in measured terms:
"A kind woman quickly and safely secured him, and authorities were called as a precaution."
Tyler's legal record extends well beyond child-related charges. The Washington Examiner reported he has faced more than 20 charges of vehicle trespass and property theft from 2024. The New York Post noted a 2022 careless driving incident and a 2024 case involving 22 charges, five of them felonies, that was ultimately resolved with a guilty plea to attempted identity theft and a two-year deferred judgment.
In an earlier statement to the Daily Mail, Lauren Boebert had struck a more optimistic note about her son's trajectory. "Tyler has been doing a great job getting his life on track as a father and citizen over the past year," she said. Josiah was born in June 2023, when Tyler was still a teenager. Boebert, who became a grandmother at 36, has often brought Josiah to Washington, D.C. Her office shared a photograph on Monday of a visit to a local Colorado farm featuring the boy.
That praise now sits uneasily alongside the felony charges entered just days earlier. Tyler Boebert has not spoken publicly about the sexual exploitation case, and no plea has been recorded. The case was first reported by American Muckrakers before broader outlets picked it up.
Lauren Boebert has four children. She has not been accused of any wrongdoing, and the charges against Tyler are his alone to answer for. But for a sitting congresswoman who has built her brand on family values and personal accountability, the accumulating legal record of her eldest son presents a problem no press statement can resolve.
Accountability starts at home. That principle does not bend for political convenience, and it should not have to.
