• Seventeen months after the infamous incident in the Green River Bar, closed-door legal proceedings are underway in Sublette County to determine whether to charge the Daniel resident who tormented a wild wolf.

 

By Mike Koshmrl, WyoFile.com

Sublette County law enforcement officials are moving forward with a long-delayed legal case that may culminate in a felony animal cruelty indictment of Cody Roberts for his capture and treatment of a wounded wolf in February 2024. 

Specifically, a grand jury is being convened to consider the indictment, WyoFile has confirmed with several sources knowledgeable about the proceedings. Summonses have been issued to select a 12-person jury, subpoenas to witnesses are going out imminently and a decision about whether to indict is expected sometime in August, according to the sources. 

State wildlife officials cited and fined Roberts last year for illegal possession of wildlife — a misdemeanor — after learning he allegedly struck a young wolf with a snowmobile, taped the hurt animal’s jaw shut and showed it off at a bar in the western Wyoming town of Daniel. But critics complained that he should have faced more severe criminal consequences for allegations that drew global outrage and even a tourism boycott of Wyoming.

Roberts has never commented publicly on the incident. WyoFile’s past attempts to reach him have failed. 

Convened perhaps once a decade in the state court system, grand juries are a seldom-used tool that statutorily are kept secret and confidential, said Pat Crank, a former Wyoming attorney general. One purpose of the secrecy is to protect the innocent’s identity, he said, but the structure also allows investigations to advance with subpoena power and without witness tampering, interference and hiding and destruction of evidence. 

“A grand jury gives you investigative tools that you don’t have prior to charging,” Crank told WyoFile. “That’s why grand juries are such an amazing tool to ferret out criminality.” 

The subpoena power grand juries equip prosecutors with can be especially handy in compelling witness accounts. Crank said he doesn’t know Sublette County prosecuting attorney Clayton Melinkovich, nor was he familiar with Melinkovich’s reasoning, but he surmised the grand jury was related to the difficulty of getting witnesses to speak with authorities. 

“None of those people in that bar who watched him do all that bullshit that he did to that poor wolf are going to rat off this asshole and then be a pariah in Sublette County the rest of their life,” Crank said. “I’m guessing that’s probably why he [the prosecutor] did it.”

Reached over the phone last week, Melinkovich told WyoFile he could not say if a grand jury was convening, and he offered no comment. 

Back in March, the county attorney explained that the investigation against Roberts was still proceeding more than a year after the fact. Specifically, he said, the county was exploring a charge of felony animal cruelty. 

“The statute says ‘an animal,’ and ‘an animal’ includes a predatory animal,” Melinkovich said at the time.

The county attorney cited the Wyoming Criminal Code, which has an exemption for predatory species in the animal cruelty laws, but only for hunting purposes. A person who takes captive and abuses a predatory animal is not fully exempt from the felony animal cruelty laws, he said. 

The same criminal code also outlines the grand jury process. To indict, at least nine members of the 12-person panel must agree to bring charges. If an indictment is returned, charges are guaranteed — it immediately becomes the charging document. 

The Wyoming Game and Fish Department took the lead in responding to the Feb. 29, 2024 incident. The agency’s investigation and subsequent citation were quickly adjudicated without public notice: Roberts, a Daniel resident, was fined $250 for possessing the wolf, though the investigating wardens could have issued steeper penalties and sent the case to court, but declined to take that step.

When Roberts’ stunt with the injured wolf became public a month later, with photos of him and the injured wolf splashed across the internet, the incident became an international source of outrage. Wyoming even convened a “Treatment of Predators Working Group,” which included some members of the Legislature, and that group workshopped a bill intended to deter the torture of predatory animals. That bill proved unpopular and went nowhere, but Jackson Republican Rep. Andrew Byron subsequently spearheaded, and the Legislature passed, the so-called Clean Kill Bill, which stiffened penalties for torturing predatory animals that were in a person’s possession. 

Crank, the former Wyoming attorney general, played a role in crafting and passing the legislation. Because Roberts’ actions occurred before the law was crafted, if he’s indicted, he wouldn’t be subject to the stiffened penalties, which took effect on July 1. 

Although the grand jury process has begun, it’s not yet common knowledge in Sublette County. Dave Stephens, a county commissioner, had not heard of the confidential proceedings when he spoke with WyoFile on Tuesday night at Pinedale High School, where U.S. Rep. Harriet Hageman was holding an unrelated town hall meeting. Most locals, Stephens said, are ready to be done with the ugly incident at the Green River Bar. 

“They just wanted it to go away, wish it hadn’t happened, don’t want the publicity,” Stephens said. 

But other parties are welcoming the new legal development. Wyoming Wildlife Advocates Executive Director Kristin Combs, who lobbied in Washington, D.C. in response to the wolf-torture incident, was “really pleased” to learn of Sublette County’s progress toward a prosecution. 

“I’m really looking forward to what comes out of the grand jury proceedings,” Combs said. “Hopefully justice will be served.”

WyoFile is an independent nonprofit news organization focused on Wyoming people, places and policy.