Legal Question in Business Law in Colorado

Sorry for the problems. It is unfortunate, to say the least, that you did not have a written contract. Never--ever--do anything without a written contract. Then once you have a contract and prior to agreement, provide it to an attorney for review. If you don't do this you all but guarantee a pain that will likely cost much more than having an attorney advise you in the first place.

As to her claim that they do not have to pay you anything because there was no contract, that sounds dubious. You may have an oral agreement (what people incorrectly term a verbal agreement) regarding the scope of your work and the compensation. Even if you have no contract you may have claims for compensation based on quantum meruit which means that you may have a right for payment for the value of your services even without a contract.

As to the questions:

1. This may be some form of partial evidence, but ultimately it will be your word against hers.

2. That is up to you. If you don't they may file the report. If you had an oral agreement that the laptop was supposed to be yours and you can get some proof of this (emails, witnesses, so on), then you could just decide to wait for them to file a claim and then file suit.

3. If they file, the police will investigate. Given the circumstances they may very well tell them that this is a civil matter and they will need to file suit. It all depends.

4. Your best option is to contact an attorney to try to get them to negotiate this. You may have some leverage if you were in fact an employee rather than a contractor and some other strategies. Regardless, they may have no choice but to file a claim in Colorado which will be a pain for them.

In short, this is not something to do yourself as there are plenty of mistakes to be made. Retain an attorney. Good luck.