Three federal judges in Wyoming on Friday dismissed felony grand jury indictments against nine defendants, faulting interim U.S. Attorney Darin Smith for misconduct that they said corrupted the proceedings from their opening moments. The judges — Scott Skavdahl, Kelly Rankin, and Alan Johnson — issued a joint order describing Smith’s conduct as “deeply concerning” and pervasive enough to prejudice the grand jurors against the people whose cases were presented to them.
“This is not a case where a few offhand statements were improperly sprinkled throughout the presentation of evidence in one defendant’s case,” the judges’ order reads. “This misconduct began with some of the first words spoken to the grand jury (and) the misconduct continued to penetrate the proceedings in off-the-record conversations, occurring on the breaks between indictments.”
The dismissed charges ranged from felony possession of firearms and drug distribution to possession of child pornography, among other offenses. The nine defendants — Cheyenne Swett, Richard Allen, Michael Scott Hopper, Brian Joseph Johnson, Dennison Jay Antelope, Mathew Christopher Jacoby, Matthew Miller Jr., Wolf Elkins Duran, and Jose Benito Ocon — were each facing grand jury indictments that the judges ruled could not stand.
The order did not detail the specific statements or off-the-record interactions that constituted the misconduct, but the judges made clear they viewed the pattern as systematic rather than incidental. The judges wrote that the misconduct “continued to penetrate the proceedings” across multiple cases, extending into breaks between presentations.
MSI previously reported on the dismissal of the indictments as the story developed.
The misconduct findings did not stall Smith’s confirmation for the permanent U.S. Attorney position in Wyoming. The U.S. Senate voted to confirm Smith to the post, according to reports from Wyoming Public Media and other outlets, over pushback from tribal leaders and in the wake of the judicial order. Wyoming’s U.S. Sens. John Barrasso and Cynthia Lummis had backed Smith’s nomination.