By Cali O’Hare
Pinedale Roundup
Via- Wyoming News Exchange

PINEDALE — Sublette County Prosecuting Attorney Clayton Melinkovich has responded to Cody Roberts’ motion to dismiss the felony animal cruelty indictment against him in a lengthy motion filed with the 9th Judicial District Court on Dec. 30. 

The 11-page document comes after Roberts’ attorney, Robert Piper, filed a motion to dismiss the case in mid-December, arguing that the phrase “in any manner” contained within Wyoming State Statute 6-3-1008 gave his client a “blanket license” to capture, hunt or destroy predators “in any manner whatsoever.”

Roberts, of Daniel, stands accused of torturing a young male gray wolf knowingly and with the intent to cause undue suffering. 

In February 2024, Roberts came into possession of a wild wolf after reportedly chasing it down on his snow machine in a predator zone, a practice that is lawful in Wyoming. 

What witnesses say happened next is why Roberts is charged with felony animal cruelty. 

Photos and videos corroborate accounts that Roberts brought the wolf — leashed, muzzled with its mouth duct-taped and wearing a collar — to the Green River Bar, where it languished on the floor. Following global outrage over the images, Wyoming Game and Fish fined Roberts $250 for possession of warm-blooded wildlife, later issuing a press release that said animal cruelty laws do not apply to predators.

 

‘An absurdity’

In his Dec. 30 motion, Melinkovich calls Piper’s “blanket and complete license” defense an “absurd result” of a legal interpretation. 

By Piper’s logic, Melinkovich argued, a person would have a “blanket and complete” license to engage in all other actions prohibited by Article 10 of Title 6, Chapter 3, including bestiality and torture, so long as the animal was a predator, pest or wildlife. This would also mean that what Roberts is accused of doing to the wolf could be done to a moose or an elk. 

To draw “such a conclusion is an absurdity,” Melinkovich wrote.

Roberts also failed to address the rest of the sentence: “not otherwise prohibited by law,” Melinkovich said. 

State statute provides limitations for the treatment of animals, including predators. For instance, capturing a wolf with a leg-hold trap without sufficient breakaway limits or a trapper’s failure to check a trap within 72 hours are not protected actions under Wyoming law. 

“Such language in the Statute indicates that the Legislature, while protecting animals from cruelty or abuse, has also sought to protect the otherwise lawful actions of individuals as they relate to animals,” Melinkovich wrote.

The county attorney also pointed to the predecessor of the current animal cruelty laws, which was part of Wyoming’s Criminal Code since its enactment in 1983 until the statute’s recodification in 2021. It included essentially the same language as the 2021 version of WSS 6-3-1005, under which Roberts is charged.

 

State statutes are clear

Citing state statutes 6-3-1005, 6-3-1008, and 6-1-104(a)(xii), Melinkovich wrote, “These statutes when taken as a whole do not contain ambiguity. It is clear that a wolf is ‘an animal’ and that the Legislature intended to prohibit ‘every act, omission or neglect whereby the willful and malicious infliction of pain or suffering is caused, permitted or allowed to continue when there is a reasonable remedy for relief.’”

 

No lenience for ‘inherently immoral’ acts

Addressing Roberts’ request to be treated with leniency under state law, Melinkovich pointed to Wyoming’s lenience rule having less effect when the alleged crime is “inherently immoral.” “Felony animal cruelty is inherently immoral,” he wrote.

Roberts is “charged with tormenting or torturing an animal, he does not stand charged with hunting, capturing, killing or destroying the animal,” Melinkovich wrote. “Therefore, there is no ambiguity and the rule of lenity does not apply.”

 

Additional motions

In addition to the request for a dismissal, Piper filed three other motions on Roberts’ behalf last month, requesting evidence related to prior wrongdoing by Roberts and “opinion testimony” be excluded from the trial and seeking to exclude testimony from Game and Fish wolf biologist Ken Mills. Mills is expected to testify that the wolf’s behavior, as observed in videos taken inside the bar, indicates Roberts injured the animal. Piper’s motion argues such testimony would be an “unscientific interpretation.”

Melinkovich intends to respond to each of those motions, as well.

 

Next steps

The motion to dismiss and the state’s response to it will be considered by Sweetwater County District Court Judge Richard Lavery at a hearing scheduled for Jan. 28. If Lavery declines to dismiss the indictment, the felony animal cruelty case against Roberts is set to go to trial on March 9.

A Sublette County grand jury of 12 residents convened in July and indicted Roberts in August 2025. He pleaded not guilty to the charge in November. If convicted, Roberts faces up to two years in prison. He is presumed innocent unless and until proven guilty in a court of law.

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