Wyoming News Briefs March 3, 2020

Former gubernatorial candidate Friess won’t run for U.S. Senate

CHEYENNE (WNE) – After weighing a run for the U.S. Senate seat being vacated by the retiring Mike Enzi, multimillionaire and former gubernatorial candidate Foster Friess announced Monday that he won’t join this year’s race.

Friess, a well-known donor to conservative politicians whose investment business is worth roughly $15 billion, came to the decision after conducting a statewide “listening tour” over the last few weeks to get a read on Wyomingites’ political attitudes.

“After a listening tour to Cody, Gillette, Casper and Cheyenne, and a Tele-Town Hall visit with 8,000 fellow Wyomingites, I believe my most significant opportunity to serve the people of Wyoming is by enlarging the efforts of Foster’s Outriders,” Friess said in a statement. “A U.S. Senate run would alter our focus.”

While he decided against running this year, the Jackson-based businessman has been heavily involved in Wyoming politics in recent years. In the 2018 Republican primary race for governor, Friess came in second behind now-Gov. Mark Gordon, falling about 9,000 votes short of the current governor.

The decision ends the possibility of a showdown between Friess and former Congresswoman Cynthia Lummis, who announced her candidacy for the seat last July.

While her wealthiest potential opponent won’t be running, Lummis isn’t the only contender in the upcoming Republican primary. Four other Republican candidates – Joshua Wheeler, Robert Short, Bryan Miller and Patrick Dotson – had filed their candidacy with the Federal Election Commission as of Monday.

The Republican primary for the Senate seat will be Aug. 18. This year’s general election is Nov. 3.

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Gillette man irate at being carded for cigarettes

GILLETTE (WNE) — If you're in your 60s, you're old enough to avoid being carded.

At least that's what one man thought when he was carded Sunday morning when trying to buy cigarettes from the Kwik Shop on Lakeway Road.

The 37-year-old clerk told police that the man, who appeared to be in his 60s, became upset when she asked him to provide some identification. If that weren't bad enough, she refused to accept his ID when he handed it to her because it was voided, Gillette Police Cpl. Dan Stroup said.

The irate man slapped the ID out of her hand, took it and walked out of the store.

Police officers were unable to identify the man, Stroup said.

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Riverton man facing felony count for beating wife

RIVERTON (WNE) — Citing years of abuse and fear, a Riverton woman reports that she’d long been the victim of her husband’s drunken rage.

Daniel Raymundo Trujillo, 58, is now being prosecuted in Fremont County District Court for two counts of felony-level domestic battery.

Because Trujillo was convicted of domestic battery twice before, in 2010 and in 2011, he now faces an enhanced penalty: up to 10 years in prison and $10,000 in fines for each of the two charges.

From a safe location in another state, Trujillo’s wife called Riverton Police Department Sgt. Amy Fyler last month with details of years of abuse, one 2018 photograph of herself, badly bruised, and a backlog of reports she’d privatized previously through the Fremont County Alliance against Domestic Violence and Sexual Assault.

“He has a history of domestic assault on her and other women,” related Fyler in a court affidavit penned by RPD Detective Sgt. Eric Smits, who noted further that Trujillo was on probation and not supposed to be drinking alcohol. His wife said he drank anyway and became violent once he did.

“She hasn’t reported domestic violence in the past because she’s afraid he will kill her,” the document continues, referring to occasions on which Trujillo reportedly had threatened to kill his wife if she reached out to police.

In the affidavit, Trujillo is quoted by his wife as saying such things as “if I abused you, you would know it,” and “(I) know people,” and “(I could) have you taken care of.”

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Alleged horse rustlers being extradited to Wyoming

PINEDALE – Two horse farm employees were arrested Feb. 24 in Maryland and taken into custody on Sublette County warrants for horse rustling and felony thefts in 2018 from Boulder Lake Lodge.

On Tuesday, Katherine A. Entsminger and Thomas W. Hickman agreed to be extradited to Wyoming, according to Sgt. Travis Bingham.

The couple was working at the Millhaven Horse Farm in Montgomery County, Maryland, from 2019 to the present and said they had worked at a Colorado cattle ranch before coming east.

Charges and arrest warrants were filed last December in Sublette County Circuit Court.

Entsminger, who came to work at Boulder Lake Lodge in September 2017, became manager in January 2018 and hired Hickman at that time.

According to court records: On April 28, 2018, Entsminger bought two registered quarter horse mares at the Billings Horse Sale with Boulder Lake Lodge money and registered herself as the owner of both.

Her first and Hickman’s only felony theft charges refer to Aug. 8, 2018, when the two were terminated and asked to leave, it says. The couple oversaw the horses’ move to a private pasture near Boulder and removed many items from lodge property to a private home. Each faces two felony horse rustling charges in connection with taking the horses.

Entsminger’s second felony theft charge relates to Nov. 13, 2017 to Aug. 11, 2018, when she allegedly used Boulder Lake Lodge accounts and cards to order items that were shipped to Iowa and Michigan addresses, according to Detective Travis Lanning’s affidavit. These included furnishings, jewelry, clothing, toys, chocolates, cosmetics and cubic zirconia wedding rings, it states.

On Aug. 11, 2018, the two allegedly took the horses, saddles and other items of Boulder Lake Lodge property with them.