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Does this make any sense at all? No. But it gets us excited that football is only days away. And, really, that's all that matters....

Sports 8 22 24

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

<title>Today In Sports: Thursday, August 22, 2024 | Cowboy State Daily</title>

Today In Sports: Thursday, August 22, 2024

 Does this make any sense at all? No. But it gets us excited that football is only days away. And, really, that's all that matters....

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

Crime & Courts

Courts

Fourteen months after a man was found in an abandoned red truck in a remote region of the Wind River Indian Reservation with two gunshots in his head, prosecutors have no ongoing, public murder cases in the December 2024 death of Riverton man Rex Lofts.

Lofts, 72, died of what the autopsy report called a homicide with two gunshots in his head around Dec. 2, 2024, but his body 

Wyoming Division of Criminal Investigation agent Kingston Cole’s investigation affidavit

Cole, DCI Team Leader Brady Patrick, and others investigated the case. The result was a 12-page affidavit by Cole, which Fremont County Chief Deputy Attorney Tim Hancock filed alongside a felony murder charge in Riverton Circuit Court on Oct. 24, 2025 – against Fort Washakie man Jose Gonzalez.

[{"type":"text","text":"Gonzalez wasn’t the only person implicated."}]

Cole’s affidavit, drawing from confidential informant and identified source interviews, alleges that Gonzalez, Luke Evan Engavo Sr. and his son Luke Evan Engavo Jr., Skeeter Engavo, Zackary Witt, and Fabian Tarness were all present and involved when Lofts was shot.

Gonzalez, whose DNA was reportedly found on Lofts’ truck steering wheel and on the dead man’s out-turned pockets, was the only one formally charged – at least as far as the public case file shows – in this case. He was charged with felony murder on that basis: a charge theorizing that he was committing the felony of aggravated burglary, and Lofts died in the process.

[{"type":"text","text":"Hancock dropped that case early last month."}]

“The fact that we have some co-defendants over which we do not have jurisdiction and only one over which we had jurisdiction creates a lot of complications in prosecution,” said Hancock.

[{"type":"text","text":"He declined to go into detail on the jurisdictional challenges."}]

But the way felony-level prosecution on the Wind River Indian Reservation works in general, the federal government through its Wyoming-based U.S. Attorney’s Office would prosecute defendants who are tribal members. And 

Fremont County Attorney’s office would prosecute non-tribal members implicated in crimes on the reservation.

Past court filings for each man list them all as “American Indian,” but call Gonzalez “white.”

As of Monday, Wyoming’s federal court file showed no current charges for any of the suspects.

“The feds are the only ones that have jurisdiction over (Gonzalez’s) codefendants,” said Hancock. “It’s just – it’s a prime example of where jurisdiction gets difficult.”

Hancock added, “They have a different way of doing their prosecutions than we do.”

Fremont County Attorney Micah Wyatt, who shared the phone interview with Hancock on Monday, said the federal U.S. Attorney’s Office in Wyoming “has always been a system where their discretion often outweighs the public’s expectation.”

Wyatt was appointed by the Fremont County Commission when his predecessor left mid-term, but normally the Fremont County Attorney is elected – whereas the top federal prosecutor of each region is appointed by the president and confirmed by the U.S. Senate.

DCI had compiled a case and presented it to the Fremont County Attorney’s Office.

The federal U.S. Attorney’s Office declined to say whether DCI did the same for it.

“As you know, I can speak in general terms that cases are brought to us by a variety of law enforcement agencies - federal, tribal, state, and local - for possible prosecutorial consideration following their investigation into a suspected violation of federal law,” said the federal office’s spokeswoman Lori Hogan in a Monday email exchange in which Cowboy State Daily also included U.S. Attorney Darin Smith.

“We consider each case based on the evidence and what can be proven beyond a reasonable doubt in a court of law,” wrote Hogan. “However, we cannot comment on the existence or lack thereof of any potential investigation or case that is not part of the public court record.”

DCI commander Ryan Cox said he was out sick, and that DCI Director Ronnie Jones, whom Cowboy State Daily also emailed, was out as well.

[{"type":"text","text":"Cox deferred comment to the U.S. Attorney’s Office."}]

[{"type":"text","marks":[{"type":"bold"}],"text":"Finding The Truck"}]

Lofts was found dead in the back seat of his red 1998 GMC pickup in a remote area on the Wind River Indian Reservation on April 21, 

– more than four months after his phone reportedly shut off. That was also more than four months after his family wanted to register him as a missing person, and more than three months after authorities agreed to list him as a missing person Jan. 12, 2025, the affidavit says.

The autopsy indicated he was shot twice with what Cole believed was a 

 projectile, and his cause of death was listed as a homicide.

Investigators started visiting with confidential informants that, Cole attested in the affidavit, he’s found to be reliable.

One informant told FBI Special Agent Luke Williamson that Luke Evan Engavo Jr, whom the affidavit calls “E Engavo,” had said Lofts beat up his girlfriend sometime in November 2024.

E Engavo came to give the girlfriend – who was bleeding and bruised – a ride to a reservation parcel cluster that law enforcement and locals known as “The Farm,” says the document.  

One confidential informant described Lofts arriving days later in his red GMC truck at The Farm with Skeeter Engavo in the passenger seat. Skeeter exited the truck and walked downhill, where he met with Zackary Witt, E Engavo and Fabian Tarness, the source account says.

[{"type":"text","text":"Skeeter wanted to “scare” Lofts, the source reportedly said."}]

Witt, E Engavo, Tarness and Skeeter Engavo confronted Lofts after that, says the affidavit.

[{"type":"text","text":"Lofts was still in the driver’s seat of his red pickup."}]

E Engavo opened the driver’s side door and stood between the door and Lofts. Tarness stood behind E Engavo and Skeeter stood behind those two men, the document says.

Lofts pulled what one confidential informant called a “bird gun,” or a low-caliber gun.

Witt drew a gun and emptied the magazine in Lofts’ direction, the affidavit relates from the source interview. Tarness, Skeeter and E Engavo were also downrange when Witt opened fire, the document alleges.

The informant reportedly described Skeeter running for the river, then Witt, Tarness and E Engavo moving Lofts, “who had been shot down while in the front driver’s seat,” to a different location in the truck.

The men took about $90, some jewelry, the bird gun and about three grams of meth from Lofts, the informant reportedly said.

Tarness got into the driver’s seat, while Witt and Engavo got into Witt’s vehicle

The affidavit says Witt and Engavo followed Tarness across the river to the location where Lofts and his red truck were found nearly five months later.

Luke Engavo Sr. was also involved in this scene, according to the account of Lofts’ girlfriend, as rendered in the affidavit. But the elder Engavo reportedly told her that Jose Gonzalez and Skeeter Engavo are the ones that “caused this shit, you know.”

The elder Engavo reportedly said it’s odd that Jose and Skeeter convinced Lofts “into coming up to the house when they knew (E Engavo) was going to beat his ass.”

[{"type":"text","marks":[{"type":"bold"}],"text":"DNA Swabs"}]

Investigators took DNA swabs from the scene where they found Lofts, and from suspects, says the affidavit.

[{"type":"text","text":"During the DNA investigation Patrick reportedly interviewed Gonzalez."}]

Gonzalez said he’d been in the passenger seat of Lofts’ truck when Lofts arrived at The Farm looking for his girlfriend, the affidavit says.

“I don’t know if Rex was able to pull his gun or not, uh, I know he had one,” Gonzalez reportedly told Patrick. “But all of a sudden the shooting just started and I … rolled out of the truck.”

[{"type":"text","text":"Gonzalez said the elder Engavo blocked him and Lofts into the property."}]

The other men “come flying in and they all jumped out of the vehicles,” Gonzalez said, according to the affidavit. Then Witt “pulled out his gun and tapped it on the window, and then fired a shot to the ground and uhm, and then (Lofts) had his gun down besides him. So I don’t know who shot first or if (Lofts) even got a shot or what.”

Gonzalez said the elder Engavo was there along with E Engavo, Skeeter Engavo, Tarness and Witt, reportedly.

In a separate interview between Patrick and E Engavo, Patrick asked if the men wanted to rob Lofts.

[{"type":"text","text":"No, came E Engavo’s answer, allegedly. They had wanted to scare him.  "}]

“Why’d you wanna scare him?” asked Patrick. “Or why did, why did everybody wanna scare him?”

E Engavo answered, “because he kept putting his hand on my auntie,” the affidavit says. The affidavit had identified E Engavo as Lofts’ girlfriend’s nephew.

Jose A Gonzalez 7 6 26

<title>No Charges From Feds 14 Months After Man Found Dead On Rez | Cowboy State Daily</title>

No Charges From Feds 14 Months After Man Found Dead On Rez

Kolby fedore

Kolby Fedore

Public Safety

A Glenrock family's Fourth of July celebration ended in chaos when a firework exploded in the middle of a crowd of spectators, seriously injuring a young boy and prompting an emergency helicopter flight to a Denver hospital.

Now, the boy's family is pleading for witnesses to come forward as they search for answers about what happened.

"Accident or not, we want to know the truth” the boy’s mother, Katrina Pergande, said in a Sunday post shared to a Glenrock community Facebook page.

On Monday, the mother told Cowboy State Daily she also wants to make people more aware of how careless people can be when it comes to fireworks.  

Pergande said her family was attending the annual Fourth of July fireworks celebration at the South Recreation Complex at around 9:30 p.m. Friday when a firework entered the area where they were gathered.

She said multiple members of her family, including herself and several of her children, suffered burns. 

Bu her son Lavon sustained the most serious injuries after the firework struck his eye and exploded.

He was transported by ambulance from Glenrock to Casper before being airlifted to Children's Hospital Colorado in Denver, she said.

"His end of the Fourth was cut short and had to be rushed to the hospital," Pergande wrote.

In Glenrock, the town doesn’t put on an organized, professional fireworks show. Instead, the fire department holds a fireworks event at the ball fields allowing people to set off their own.

Admission is $10 per car with a cap at 400 cars. No alcohol is allowed as well.

[{"type":"text","marks":[{"type":"bold"}],"text":"Eyewitness Describes Chaos"}]

John Rosenfeld of Casper, a former emergency medical technician who attended the event, said he was sitting on metal bleachers between two ball fields when he noticed something unusual.

"I saw it come across the ground," Rosenfeld said about observing the errant firework. "It came from the middle section of the left field, and I did see it explode in the middle of the crowd of people."

He said panic spread through the crowd almost immediately. 

Rosenfeld described people running from the area while at least one person cried out. Before he could reach the scene, firefighters had already responded.

"Big props to the Glenrock Fire Department," he said. "They were there before even I could get up and do anything."

Rosenfeld said responders quickly removed the injured person from the area. At the time, he didn't realize that was a child.

"I asked a couple of people that were in the area if they were all right, and that seemed to be the only injury that I saw," he said, adding that, "I don't think anyone shot it at the group of people. 

"I do think it was a complete accident that just happened to go that direction."

[{"type":"text","marks":[{"type":"bold"}],"text":"Family Seeking Witnesses"}]

Pergande is asking anyone who attended the fireworks celebration and witnessed the incident — or captured photos or video — to contact the Glenrock Police Department or reach out to her directly.

She said her family had been seated on the left field near the second-to-last row of fireworks stands when the incident happened.

"With so many people at this event, I truly feel that someone saw this happen or knows something that can help us find the person responsible," she wrote.

In a later update, Pergande said Lavon was receiving steroid treatments every few hours while doctors worked to reduce inflammation that was preventing them from fully examining his eye.

 she started to help cover medical costs that Lavon suffered multiple injuries “and burns on his eyelid and had significant trauma to his actual eye."

She said physicians expect to determine whether surgery would be an option after additional evaluation.

"Our sweet boy was just enjoying his night, smiling and loving his time with his family," Pergande wrote.

[{"type":"text","marks":[{"type":"bold"}],"text":"Not Just 'Pretty Sparks'"}]

Having responded to fireworks injuries during his career, Rosenfeld said incidents like this show how dangerous fireworks can be when they're not handled properly.

"A lot of people are not aware of fireworks," he said. "They think it's all just pretty sparks and don't really comprehend that it's an explosive device and can remove fingers and body parts.”

Glenrock Chief of Police Colter Felton said that there is an open investigation into the boy reportedly being "struck in the face by a firework."

Because there's an active investigation, the chief told Cowboy State Daily in a Monday email that he can't comment on some details, including about the possible source of the firework or who may have discharged it.

"I can confirm that the juvenile male was injured in the left eye and that he was transported by ambulance to the emergency room in Casper," he said, adding that anyone with information, photos or videos should contact the Glenrock Police Department.

"I would like to remind the public that fireworks are dangerous and unpredictable, and that those using them should exercise caution, not only for themselves but for the people and property around them as well," Felton said. "I pray for a quick and full recovery for the injured young man and his family."

A Glenrock boy was airlifted to a Denver hospital on the Fourth of July after getting hit in the eye with an errant firework when it exploded in a crowd at a local park. A witness said he watched it "explode in the middle of the crowd of people.”

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