New West Network

My Page: Gil Brady

State officials address backlogs & understaffing

While problems with understaffing, retention and training new scientists have contributed to half-year backlogs at the state crime lab in Cheyenne, the long delays raise the question of whether some habitual offenders are going unpunished.

“You know, the longer a perpetrator is out there, the more opportunity there is for them to commit crimes,” Forrest Bright, Director of Wyoming’s Division of Criminal Investigation (DCI), said when asked recently if repeat offenders were getting away with additional offenses due to his agency’s backlogs and personnel issues.

“Sometimes it’s the investigation,” he added. “Sometimes it takes time before forensics are discovered. That can take months or years.” [more]

Secrecy Watch: 6 month Delays Plague State Crime Lab

In the sun-drenched, aesthetically cool world of “CSI: Miami” and other popular cop shows, it all looks so easy.

Invariably, each episode begins with the mysterious disappearance of a solid citizen, or the accidental discovery of a nude body, violently murdered and unearthed by a county worker surveying a backwoods road in the leafy, forested swamp.

Clues such as hair, blood, gunshot wounds, a watch and a ring on the dead man’s stiff hand offer vague hints linking the victim to his murderer. After a search of the nearby woods, an eagle-eyed gumshoe plucks a strand of black electrical tape off a weed dangling over a muddy boot print.

By the next commercial break, a ready, waiting and well-coiffured lab technician lifts a latent print off the sticky tape to the riffs of techno-music. Upon running it through a database, he develops slam-dunk proof either identifying a suspect, or eliminating one already under suspicion, spinning the hot pursuit in a new direction.

Voila! The rest of the show follows the chase, inevitable arrest and successful prosecution of the bad guys.

Without failure in TV land, crime lab results are definitive and instantaneous. Villains are caught, and their prosecutions are unerring and swift, a mere formality.

By contrast, Wyoming’s top cops are still awaiting the results of clues submitted to the state’s crime lab six months ago. [more]

Guest Opinion

On balance, the nightly televised news once again failed the nation last week, leaving open the question of who’s the bigger loser.

Given the opportunity to knock a softball out of the park in the bottom of the 9th and bring the long-suffering home team a much-needed win, Big Media whiffed. What’s worse is they got caught looking like overpaid chumps, like Jake LaMotta taking a last nosedive for a fat payoff, instead of going down swinging.

Of course, I’m talking about the mainstream packs’ fraud disguised as objective reporting on the Andrew Meyer's fiasco at Florida University on Sept. 17. Nearly to a news station and to an anchorman or woman it was about as bad and biased as it gets.

But let me say here that my complaint has nothing to do with whether Meyer's behavior was legal or illegal.

Further, this jeremiad is not about arguing against whether Glenn “No Neck” Beck or others believe Meyer to be a jerky, self-promoting publicity hound.

Those wrapped up in the self-deceiving schadenfreude of seeing a loud-mouthed Florida J-school student get what was coming to him – and now insist he needs to take ‘responsibility’ for whatever they or Beck might think Meyer was irresponsible in doing – are too busy getting their rocks off getting ahead of the story to get the story. [more]

Cop Kicker "Guilty"

Jurors apparently at odds with an anecdote by the presiding judge deliberated on Wednesday for nearly three hours before convicting a 26-year-old man of intentionally injuring a deputy at the Mangy Moose Saloon last winter.

Eyewitnesses and peace officers testified this week that police were called to the popular hot spot at Teton Village shortly before 2 a.m. on March 14.

Sheriff’s deputies Chad Sachse and Todd Stanyon said they arrived at the nightclub to find three to four men — including employees and Robert Hulsy’s friend – pinning a drunk and belligerent Hulsy to the saloon’s upstairs deck.

Standing during the trial, Stanyon demonstrated how, after arresting Hulsy, he and Sachse escorted the unruly man, who had just been bounced from the bar, down the stairs as Hulsy’s roommate, J.R. Jenkins, followed and Hulsy suddenly lunged into Sachse. [more]

Stanyon: 'A very loud, grotesque pop'

The trial of a man accused of “donkey kicking” and badly injuring a local lawman, while being arrested last winter, took a dramatic turn Tuesday when Teton County Sheriff’s Deputy Todd Stanyon took the stand following opening arguments in District Court here.

His voice breaking, and at times on the verge of tears, Stanyon accepted a box of tissues from Prosecuting Attorney Steve Weichman while telling the jury about the painful injury he sustained following a tussle he and fellow Deputy Chad Sachse had with Robert Hulsy, during an arrest on March 14.

The two peace officers testified they arrived at the Mangy Moose shortly before 2 a.m. to find three to four men, including saloon employees and Hulsy’s roommate, pinning the reportedly belligerent defendant to the saloon’s upstairs deck. [more]

Charges Stem From Mangy Moose Melee

The man charged with allegedly kicking and injuring Teton County Sheriff’s Deputy Todd Stanyon during a March melee at the Mangy Moose goes on trial Tuesday.

Robert Hulsy, 25, faces one count of interference with a peace officer, a felony.

Teton County prosecutors dropped two of three felonies against Hulsy earlier this year. But Circuit Court Judge Timothy C. Day allowed the third charge – felony interference with a peace officer – to be bound over to District Court.
[more]

Alleged Gunman Held on $50,000 Bail

BREAKING...6:52 p.m.
Update 11:57 p.m.

A man arrested and booked Monday on attempted first-degree murder, for allegedly shooting his girlfriend’s son in the shoulder before dawn that day, now faces two lesser felony counts arising from a reported domestic violence incident.

Also on Wednesday, bail for Randall Craig Cosgrove of Jackson was set at $50,000 in 9th Circuit Court here.

Looking grizzled but alert, Cosgrove, 47, sat shackled about the waist in a yellow jumper. Rocking back in his seat, between two other defendants arraigned on unrelated charges, Cosgrove flashed a smile at an older, gray-haired woman dressed in a black embroidered jacket. [more]

Where's Osama?

A guest OPINION

Larger than huge, far exceeding the massive, worldwide anticipation for the release of J. K. Rowling’s final Harry Potter movie this summer was the big splash Osama bin Laden made this week, appearing in his first video since October of 2004.

Out of the limelight since releasing a sensational audio tape more than a year ago, the top terrorist on the planet dispelled recent rumors that he had died of kidney disease.

Startling new images of the al-Qaeda leader reveal that all that had dyed was his mostly gray beard from previous videos. And the change gives Osama a younger, more vigorous look than western viewers might have expected.

This amazing comeback by a long-forgot major public figure is as remarkable as any death-defying feat performed by the great Houdini. A flair for the dramatic would be understating Osama’s inestimable ability for gaining attention — as proven by the timing of his return to coincide with the 6th anniversary of his notoriously repugnant world stage debut.
[more]

Public Corruption Probe Advances

Police continue to investigate an elaborate larceny and embezzling scheme involving the alleged over-charging of local vehicle buyers for their transfers of title and a “slush fund” kept in the desk drawer of an employee of the Teton County clerk's office.

“I was shocked to learn that a trusted employee was suspected of embezzling funds,” County Clerk Sherry Daigle said in an official press release Friday.

Her face flushed behind her desk, Daigle said late Friday that she had fired a county worker earlier that day. Due to the ongoing corruption probe, however, Daigle declined to identify the terminated employee.

Among items seized and inventoried in a search warrant returned to 9th Circuit Court Monday: 11 checks payable to the Teton County Clerk’s Office and four $20 bills “located in an open plain white envelope with stickers on the exterior, known as the ‘overflow slush fund’.”

(*See editor's note at the end of this article) [more]

Backcountry Trip Ends in Tragedy

Two Idaho men drowned after their canoe flipped in Shoshone Lake in Yellowstone National Park, federal officials reported in a press release.

The victims have been identified as Fred Kisabeth, 74, and Charles Peters, 80, both of Boise, Idaho.

The men had fishing permits and a backcountry permit for Wednesday, Thursday, and Friday night at three different campsites along the shore of Shoshone Lake, located in the backcountry southeast of Old Faithful. [more]