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[{"type":"text","text":"We know, we know. Not everyone will think this is funny..."}]

You still here 8 23 23

Cowboy State Daily is Wyoming’s largest newspaper with Wyoming’s most experienced journalists. 

<title>You Still Here? Wednesday, August 23, 2023 | Cowboy State Daily</title>

We know, we know. Not everyone will think this is funny...

You Still Here? Wednesday, August 23, 2023

 We know, we know. Not everyone will think this is funny...

Headshot of Cowboy State Daily's general assignment reporter, Clair McFarland.

Clair McFarland

Government & Politics

Politics

After Wyoming’s most famous diesel delete mechanic Troy Lake 

 Nov. 7 from President Donald Trump, he started advocating for other mechanics who, like him, were hit with prison time, fines or both for tampering with diesel emissions systems.

[{"type":"text","text":"Trump pardoned nine more diesel delete mechanics Friday."}]

 before he was pardoned, had advocated for six of those:

Ryan and Wade LaLone, Tim Clancy, Matt Geouge, Mac Spurlock, and Joshua Davis.

Wyoming-based lobbyist Jeff Daugherty and Colorado-based attorney Stewart Cables, who work with Lake and his fledgling group Diesel Freedom Coalition, had represented five of those six (not Davis).

Besides pardon-related advocacy, Lake said his group is working to provide sound emissions evidence and mechanical strategies to policymakers, to persuade them to pivot toward emissions regulations that don’t crush small-time trucking businesses and other fleets.

“Sometimes it makes you think, are we really making any traction? Are we really going anywhere? Because government moves at a snail pace,” Lake reflected in his Monday interview.

[{"type":"text","text":"Then came Friday, and the news of pardons. "}]

[{"type":"text","text":"“And all of a sudden, it’s there,” the Cheyenne man said.  "}]

Lake said U.S. Sen. Dan Sullivan, R-Alaska, is another key advocate. Sullivan had taken up Spurlock’s case and written a March 12 letter to the president urging a pardon.

The other three delete mechanics pardoned Friday were: Jonathan Achtemeyer, Aaron Rudolf, and Barry Pierce.

“It’s a small community,” said Daugherty of the diesel mechanic world. “A lot of these folks know each other.”

Daugherty and Cables, who work together, both told Cowboy State Daily they search specifically for small-business techs with non-notable or zero criminal history who have been convicted of Clean Air Act violations under an interpretation that they call invalid.

The Biden administration invoked a statute long used to prosecute people for tampering with big stationary emissions monitoring systems – such as on a chemical plant – to charge people who’d tweaked or reprogrammed trucks’ computers instead.

The Trump administration withdrew from that interpretation earlier this year, and told the U.S. Department of Justice to stop charging delete mechanics criminally. Civil penalties may still apply.

[{"type":"text","text":"Geouge always loved diesel pickup trucks."}]

He told Cowboy State Daily he started tinkering with diesel engines because his first vehicle was a Ford with a six-liter Power Stroke engine. He learned to tune it at age 17, which would have been in about 2004.

[{"type":"text","text":"He was hooked."}]

In June 2007, at age 20, he started his own repair business, Spartan Diesel Technologies, in Hendersonville, North Carolina.

One year later, manufacturers started adding diesel particulate filters to the stock engines.  

Expensive, recurring repair jobs limped into Geouge’s business, he recalled.

“Small business owners, farmers, emergency service people, hot shot haulers that had these trucks – these were failing left and right,” said Geouge. “They were defective from the moment they rolled off the assembly line.”

Geoge helped by installing alternative software – a process called “tuning.”

Back then, the U.S. Environmental Protection Agency didn’t pursue criminal charges against delete and tune mechanics who worked around emissions systems.

Emissions systems grew more complex and expansive. Trucks kept breaking down, Geouge said. Looking back, he said, the timing was “both great and terrible.”

He got into diesel work because it was fun. But problems from what he called volatile and problematic emissions systems found him.  

“It wasn’t where I expected the business to go. But it went there out of necessity,” Geouge said.

In 2013 the EPA filed a civil case against him, which continued for about a year and a half.

[{"type":"text","text":"“That was incredibly expensive,” said Geouge."}]

 A notice of violation hit him in 2015. Spartan Diesel shut down in 2017.

The U.S. Attorney’s Office of North Carolina charged Geouge in 2021 with two felonies: conspiracy to violate the Clean Air Act, and another charge of tax evasion.

Geouge maintains he did not commit tax evasion. He and Cables both cast that charge as a leverage move by prosecutors to get him to plead guilty.

“That was great evidence of weaponization,” Cables said. “I think the U.S. Attorneys will use whatever leverage they can to bully people into taking a plea deal.”

Cables said the “tax evasion” comprised past-due IRS obligations – normally something that would prompt a repayment plan or civil penalty.

[{"type":"text","text":"Geouge said it was fallout from his business going broke."}]

“They also threatened to charge his fiancée with felonies for aiding and abetting and tax evasion to get Matt to plead guilty to the felonies,” said Cables.

[{"type":"text","text":"Geouge did plead guilty, in early 2022."}]

He was sentenced to one year and one day in prison. He was also fined about $2.5 million, he said Monday.

One month before his June 2022 sentencing hearing, Geouge’s and his fiancée, Caroline, learned that she was pregnant, Geouge recalled.

He checked into prison at USP Lee, Virginia, July 28, and prepared to miss his baby’s birth.

But at the end of August 2022, Geouge’s body went into diabetic ketoacidosis and he was hospitalized in intensive care for eight days, he said.

After the medical incident he returned to prison and learned there how to use insulin. He was 35.

Geouge was released to home confinement on Dec. 13, 2022. Forty-three days later, his son was born.

[{"type":"text","text":"The fallout from being a convicted felon brought surprises."}]

Geouge went to start a new business with a colleague once he was out of prison, and found banks were hesitant to work with him. Unable to possess firearms, he also lost his gun-building business, which he had run out of Spartan Diesel while the shop still lived.

Ryan LaLone had a similar experience, he told Cowboy State Daily in his own interview Monday.

He lives in northern Michigan. Hunting affinity runs in his blood, he said.

“And I think I’ve voted in every election since I’ve been able to vote. I’m proud to be an American; I want to vote,” said LaLone.

He said he walked into a bank with an 810 credit score after his conviction, hoping to buy a camper.

[{"type":"text","text":"“And they were like, well, but you’ve got a felony,” LaLone said."}]

[{"type":"text","text":"Geouge’s shop wasn’t raided."}]

[{"type":"text","text":"Ryan LaLone’s was, on Nov. 2, 2018, he said."}]

“Probably 30 agents, I mean, guns blazing, riot gear, I mean you’d have thought we were cooking meth in there. It was unreal,” LaLone said.

That got his small hometown of Gaylord, Michigan, stirring, he recalled. The reputational hit hurt his shop, Diesel Freak, as did the criminal case, he said.

LaLone started his shop in 2007 in Gaylord – a small, conservative-leaning town. His brother Wade came to work for him in 2012, LaLone said.  

Ryan said his goal was “just keep the trucks running. We didn’t blow smoke. We weren’t into this crazy stuff you see on the internet.” He said the Michigan Department of Transportation hired him one spring to repair striper trucks for the short work season.

But the criminal case didn’t start until after Trump’s first administration ended.

That’s a similar account to Lake. His wife, Holly, told Cowboy State Daily in an interview last year that the investigators essentially vanished after federal agents raided their shop – which was then in northern Colorado – in late 2018.

Pressure from the federal prosecutor’s office mounted in the autumn of 2022 and LaLone was formally charged April 26, 2023, with one count of conspiring to violate the Clean Air Act and two counts of violating it – all felonies.

LaLone said his attorney told him Vice President Kamala Harris had made such violations a priority, and that it was futile to fight. He took a plea deal as soon as his charge surfaced publicly.

LaLone didn’t do time in prison. He said he was offered the choice between prison or a hefty fine and took the fine: $750,000 for his business and $7,500 for him.

[{"type":"text","text":"Voided Warranty Tuning"}]

Achtemeier learned how to tune a vehicle, meaning reprogram its on-board diagnostic system, remotely.

He told Cowboy State Daily that he started reconfiguring diesel systems to ignore emissions flags because some of the emissions sensors and parts shot to eight times their normal price during COVID, or became unavailable. Tractors stalled in the field during harvest time, he said. 

Through his shop Voided Warranty Tuning he gained a national following as an expert engine tuner and the nickname “diesel engine software god,” says a prosecutor’s Feb. 7, 2025, filing urging a judge to give him a harsher sentence, in part because of his sophistication in the trade.

In late 2025, Achtemeier spent four months in federal prison in Manchester, Kentucky, and was fined $25,000.

It could have been worse. His original charges called for up to 31 years in prison and potentially millions in fines.

He shuttered his diesel shop Voided Warranty Tuning years before his criminal prosecution started. He’d taken to driving a truck instead.

Achtemeier was still on supervised release until Friday, when he got news of his pardon. He cared for his horses, and cleaned out their stalls, in an unprecedented heat wave Friday afternoon, he told Cowboy State Daily. Then he collapsed onto the couch, sat with his dogs, and nodded off.

[{"type":"text","text":"The phone rang."}]

“I almost didn’t answer it. I thought it was spam,” said Achtemeier.

It was the White House. Achtemeier struggled to rationalize what the person was saying.

“It’s still kind of surreal, you know?” he said Monday. He said he never expected to be pardoned, adding, “I’m just some small-town guy.”

Like LaLone, Geouge and Lake, Achtemeier described his lost gun and civic rights as dear to him. He lives in New Jersey, but explains his rural environment as, “We’re in a big farm area. ‘Friday The 13th’ New Jersey not ‘Sopranos’ New Jersey.”

He’s from the West Coast, and was charged in the federal U.S. District Court for western Washington in March 2024.

While on probation he couldn’t leave the state, which makes it “hard to do oversized trucking.”

Achtemeier said he had filed his pardon request paperwork for himself. He said he’s unaware of anyone advocating for him but grateful if someone did.

Still, Achtemeier said he was inspired by Lake – whom he and others cast as a celebrity of the diesel tech world.

Without Lake and another mechanic and activist, Kory Willis, “I don’t think this would have happened,” said Achtemeier.

“Troy put a spotlight on how bad these (prosecutions) were,” he said. “I’m just thankful for Trump seeing this, and thankful for anybody that directly or indirectly made this happen.”

Each of the mechanics who spoke with Cowboy State Daily on Monday said they understand the air cleanliness objective. But the manufacturers’ emissions systems, which cripple small businesses, are a heartless way to chase it, they said.

“It’s not an either/or situation,” said Geouge. “Automotive technology has gotten to the point where the electronic controls are so accurate, you can have a clean-running truck without these excessive, unreliable, and expensive components bolted all over it.”

Cables echoed the mechanics’ gratitude, saying, “We are very thankful that the Trump administration is taking an interest in our cases and we are very thankful to President Trump for granting these pardons.”

The president, said Cables, “is rightfully spending his time and attention on these domestic issues, like the emissions weaponization cases.”

Troy Lake and Trump 7 6 26

<title>Wyoming's Famous Diesel Mechanic Gets Presidential Pardons For Others | Cowboy State Daily</title>

Wyoming's most famous diesel “delete" mechanic Troy Lake, who was pardoned by Trump after a prison stint, advocated for the president to pardon at least six more. On Friday, Trump pardoned those six, plus three others.

Wyoming's Famous Diesel Mechanic Gets Presidential Pardons For Others

Employee kate meadows cropped

Kate Meadows

A controversial flood mitigation effort that brought 150-200 goats to graze along Bitter Creek in Rock Springs is on hold, at least for now.

After spending about $200,000 over three grazing sessions since the spring of 2025, the Rock Springs City Council chose not to budget additional money for the project in the coming fiscal year, instead directing funding toward cemetery lighting.

"This will be the last we see goats, at least for the next fiscal year of operations," Councilman Dan Pedri told Cowboy State Daily.

The decision at least temporarily halts a program that has generated equal parts criticism and curiosity.

Some residents questioned whether taxpayers should spend tens of thousands of dollars to have goats eat weeds. Others regularly stopped to watch the herd quietly graze along Bitter Creek.

[{"type":"text","text":"\"It's a little source of entertainment,\" Pedri said."}]

During the latest grazing session, which began April 1 and ended June 30, the goats removed roughly 35 tons of vegetation, according to mayor Max Mickelson.

“This does not meet the creeks are ‘fixed',” he said. “It means one more piece of the long-term flood mitigation work was completed.”

[{"type":"text","marks":[{"type":"bold"}],"text":"A Different Approach"}]

Rock Springs has struggled with periodic flooding for decades, Mickelson said, dating to alterations made to the creek channel by the former Union Pacific Coal Company.

"The goal was simple," Mickelson said of the Bitter Creek project. "Reduce noxious weeds, brush and fuel load along the creek corridors so water can flow more freely, fire risk is reduced, and our intermittent creek system is in better condition before the next major storm event.

"Our broader work is about protecting homes, businesses, infrastructure and development opportunities from recurring floodplain impacts."

The city brought in goats in the spring of 2025 on a trial basis, paying a Cheyenne operation $50,000. Mickelson said the goats “performed better than expected.”

Council member Randy Hanson had asked the council to look into goats, pointing to other Wyoming communities such as Cheyenne and Gillette that were using them successfully for targeted grazing.

[{"type":"text","text":"“We aren’t pioneers of this process by any means,” Pedri said."}]

Farson land and livestock owner Josh Skorcz caught wind of the project “through the Rock Springs grapevine” and pitched himself as a local solution to the flood-risk problem.

[{"type":"text","text":"Skorcz was the only person who bid."}]

“I provide a service,” he told Cowboy State Daily. “I saw an opportunity where we could supply a service to a local entity that needed it.”

In the fall of 2025, the city paid $58,000 to Skorcz’s LS 5 Livestock for eight weeks.

Then, in April, the Rock Springs City Council voted 6-2 to use goats for a third year for $92,000 – a 59% cost increase.

The increase was largely due to more acreage and longer duration, Skorcz said.

"The city did not pay $34,000 more for the same amount of work," Mickelson said. "The scope, timing, staffing and logistical burden increased in relation to the scope of the project."

[{"type":"text","marks":[{"type":"bold"}],"text":"Why Goats?"}]

Skorcz said goats can reach steep, brush-choked areas where heavy equipment struggles to operate, reducing vegetation that can create debris dams during high-water events.

[{"type":"text","text":"The work, however, is labor intensive."}]

Under the city's contract, the herd had to be supervised around the clock. Workers also installed and repeatedly moved roughly 10,000 feet of portable electric fencing by hand.

"We're trying to see that incremental decrease over time of the amount of noxious weeds and thick vegetation," Skorcz said. "You're always going to have vegetation, but the type is what's important."

Mickelson said alternatives such as mechanical removal, herbicides, prescribed burning or major construction each come with significant limitations, permitting requirements or environmental restrictions.

Despite reaching stated goals, the project’s growing price tag remained a sticking point.

Pedri and Councilman Rick Milonas – a vocal critic of Mickelson and a contender for this year’s mayoral seat – voted against approving this year's $92,000 contract, saying many constituents questioned the expense.

"That's why I opted not to do it," Pedri said. "My vote was based on the constituents that reached out to me and my promise to be the voice of the majority."

The cumulative cost — roughly $200,000 over three projects — has also become an issue in the mayoral race.

Candidate Katherine Phelps has repeatedly criticized the program on social media. She did not respond to Cowboy State Daily's request for comment.

[{"type":"text","text":"Pedri said the debate ultimately came down to competing priorities."}]

Like many cities, Rock Springs faces a limited budget while weighing other costly needs, including long-term repairs to its civic center.

[{"type":"text","marks":[{"type":"bold"}],"text":"Could The Goats Return?"}]

Although the goats won't return next year, Mickelson said the city is awaiting a vegetation study from LS 5 Livestock evaluating the project's effectiveness.

That report will help determine whether targeted grazing is included in future budgets after the 2027 fiscal year.

"We intend to make it an annual tool," Mickelson said, "based on council deciding to allocate funds for it."

[{"type":"text","text":"He acknowledged the program's cost can be difficult to justify."}]

[{"type":"text","text":"\"Nobody likes spending $92,000,\" he said."}]

But he said he believes prevention is ultimately less expensive than recovering from flood damage.

"A community pays one way or another," Mickelson said. "We can pay in steady, boring maintenance before the storm, or we can pay in emergency response, damaged property and regret after it.

"I would much rather answer hard questions about prevention today than stand in front of flooded homes and explain why we didn't use a cost-effective tool we had available."

For now, the city will continue monitoring the Bitter Creek corridor. If conditions create an immediate flood or fire risk, Mickelson said, the council could consider a future budget amendment.

Hungry goats 1 7 6 26

<title>Rock Springs Ends Controversial Goat Grazing Program After Spending $200,000 | Cowboy State Daily</title>

After spending about $200,000 in goat grazing for flood mitigation since 2025, the town of Rock Springs is putting an end to it for now. One council member said residents say it’s too expensive. "This will be the last we see goats,” he said.

Rock Springs Ends Controversial Goat Grazing Program After Spending $200,000

Headshot of Cowboy State Daily reporter, Dale Killingbeck

Dale Killingbeck

Crime & Courts

Courts

CASPER — A 19-year-old man who held an 18-month-old child in front of him

during an armed standoff with police plans to enter a change of plea on the four misdemeanor charges he faces.

Brayden Donald Randolph appeared in Casper Circuit Court on Monday with his attorney, Keith Nachbar, for a scheduled hearing before Judge Kevin Taheri, his first court appearance to determine the status of his case.

Nachbar told the judge that his client plans to put the charges he faces behind him.

“We can do a change of plea and sentencing at the same time,” he said, telling the judge that he would need about two hours of the court’s time.

Natrona County Assistant District Attorney Kristen Strube agreed with the assessment of the time needed.

[{"type":"text","marks":[{"type":"textStyle"}],"text":"Taheri said a date would be set."}]

Charges against Randolph include reckless endangerment, child endangerment, being a minor in possession of alcohol and interference with a peace officer. 

Court records show Randolph is free on a $7,500 cash or surety bond with one bond requirement — daily drug and alcohol testing.

Randolph’s encounter with the Casper Police Department started about 9:30 p.m. on April 18, part of which was shown in the release of 

 of officers first calling for Randolph to surrender with his hands up. 

Then after a two-hour standoff, officers were shown busting into his apartment in the 1000 block of St. John Street in North Casper and bringing out a toddler.

A report from the department at the time emphasized their attempt to de-escalate the situation.

A neighbor told Cowboy State Daily that when he arrived to his home around 6 p.m. that day, he initially heard singing and yelling and a party atmosphere from the apartment.

[{"type":"text","marks":[{"type":"textStyle"},{"type":"bold"}],"text":"Gunshot And Threats"}]

When he went outside after hearing a gunshot just before 9:30 p.m., the neighbor said he saw two young people fleeing in a vehicle and heard Randolph threatening to kill them.

A police affidavit on the case states an officer talked to the neighbor, went to Randolph’s apartment and knocked on the door. Randolph yelled through the door telling the officer to leave.

“Randolph yelled he had a gun,” the affidavit states. “Randolph closed the blinds of the residence to limit (the officer’s) ability to see what happened inside.”

The officer observed broken glass on the floor and a vodka bottle on the kitchen counter.

He also saw Randolph walk away from a living room and pick up an AR-style firearm with the buttstock removed and try to put the buttstock back on the rifle.

Officers were advised that a small child was in the residence, and a short time later Randolph was seen walking into the living room holding the child’s hand.

According to the affidavit, Randolph opened the door of the apartment telling officers to leave the area and at that time had a handgun in the waistband of his pants.

He then went into the apartment and reappeared holding the 18-month-old child “like a shield” while grabbing the handgrip of the handgun still in his waistband.

“Randolph told officers he had a gun and officers had guns and Randolph challenged officers to get him,” the affidavit states. “Randolph went back into the house.”

Another Casper officer contacted and spoke with a 20-year-old man who had fled the house and was told that Randolph had fired a gun during an argument, then he and another man left, the affidavit states.

Police report the child’s mother arrived at the residence around 9:35 p.m. and tried to contact Randolph several times without a response.

The affidavit states a Natrona County Sheriff’s Office negotiator was called to the scene and tried to establish contact with Randolph and was unsuccessful.

After a request for a warrant for Randolph’s arrest was received about 11:30 p.m., two Casper police officers went to the north side of the ground-floor apartment where a bedroom was located and saw Randolph sleeping on the floor, on his back.

The child was asleep on his shoulder. No weapons were visible, the affidavit states.

Officers tried to use a key to enter the apartment that was identified by the child’s mother as being in Randolph’s vehicle. 

When that did not work, they used a door ram to enter the apartment.

[{"type":"text","marks":[{"type":"textStyle"},{"type":"bold"}],"text":"Resisting Arrest"}]

Officers went to the bedroom, removed the child, and Randolph “tried to resist.”

“While handcuffing Randolph, he attempted to roll away from officers and took hold of (an officer’s) foot,” the affidavit states. “(The officer) was able to break Randolph’s hold and Randolph was detained without further incident.”

Officers found a loaded firearm underneath Randolph, the affidavit states.

The reckless endangerment charge carries a potential penalty of one year in jail.

The child endangerment charge and interference with a peace officer charges also carry a penalty of up to one year in jail and $1,000 fines.

The minor in possession charge is punishable by up to six months in jail and a $750 fine.

Randolf inset 7 6 26

<title>Casper Man Accused Of Holding Toddler ‘Like A Shield’ In Standoff To Change Plea | Cowboy State Daily</title>

A Casper man accused of holding a toddler “like a shield” in front of him during an armed standoff said Monday he intends to change his plea. The man "told officers he had a gun and officers had guns and challenged officers to get him,” police say.

Casper Man Accused Of Holding Toddler ‘Like A Shield’ In Standoff To Change Plea

Headshot of Cowboy State Daily State Government and Politics reporter, Leo Wolfson.

Leo Wolfson For Cowboy State Daily

As temperatures soar in the summer, ski resorts in the Rocky Mountain West are "farming" snow, storing it under giant thermal mats as insurance for the upcoming season. Snow stays close to freezing in the summer even in triple-digit temperatures.

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