A Gillette man who kidnapped a 14-year-old girl’s sexual abuser last year was sentenced between 9 and 10 years in prison, while the man he kidnapped got between 10-14 years for molesting the girl.
Timothy “TJ” Ott, 31, pleaded guilty earlier this year to kidnapping Zackery Minard, 23, after a mother in Gillette found Minard in bed with her 14-year-old daughter on Nov. 30, 2023, court documents say. His sentence was imposed last week.
Ott also pleaded guilty this year to possessing methamphetamine, a felony-level offense for having possessed drugs three times.
You Better Come Here
Unsure what to do when she found Minard at her house, the mother of the girl called Ott, and Ott arrived with a friend. Ott and his 35-year-old friend arrived at the house to find Minard still sitting on the living room couch after insisting he was going to marry the 14-year-old girl, the mother told Cowboy State Daily at the time.
Ott confronted Minard and a scuffle followed. The girl vomited, her mother said.
The three men took the fight outside, while the mother stayed inside to console her daughter, who had met Minard days prior.
The evidentiary affidavit filed in Ott’s case tells the second half of the story.
Get In The Trunk
Ott grabbed Minard’s ankles and pulled him outside, while Ott’s friend kicked Minard, says the document. They let Minard get to his feet outside and commanded him to get into the trunk of a red 2007 Chevy four-door passenger vehicle.
Minard later told police he wasn’t forced into the trunk, but got in to avoid further beatings.
In the trunk, Minard jostled against hard metal objects. He later told police it felt like Ott was speeding and slowing abruptly to hurt him.
It crossed his mind that he was about to be killed in some remote place, the affidavit says.
The trunk popped open somewhere in rural Campbell County. Deputies later pegged it as Timber Creek Road, which winds through a rural dirt swath just south of Highway 51 near Rozet, Wyoming.
Ott punched Minard and broke his nose, says the affidavit.
Another car approached. One of the men told Minard to go hide by the railroad track, and he did. The two men then left the area, leaving Minard shoeless in 35-degree weather with a Wyoming windchill, the document says.
Someone called in a welfare check on a “disheveled” man wandering in the cold, which brought a Campbell County Sheriff’s Office deputy, and later emergency medical personnel, to Minard’s rescue.
Both men confessed to their different crimes.
Minard confessed to having sex with the underage girl during his interview with investigators.
Ott confessed to dragging Minard from the girl’s home and taking him out of town in his car trunk to a place where “there might have been a couple punches thrown,” court documents say.
Things went “too far,” Ott admitted.
Ott was originally charged with a severe kidnapping violation punishable by up to life in prison, but when he agreed to plead guilty, Campbell County Attorney Nathan Henkes reduced the charge to a lesser violation, punishable by up to 20 years in prison and $10,000 in fines.
But Once The White Powder Settled
On Dec. 11 — or 12 days after Ott’s arrest — a woman who runs a home for people freshly released from prison called the Gillette Police Department to report finding white powder in baggies in a pouch in Ott’s room.
She also found seven syringes, says the affidavit in Ott’s meth possession case.
GPD agent Ben Hoang reportedly recognized the powder as meth. A field test later identified it as meth as well.
Hoang drove to the jail to meet with Ott, who said he was going to use the meth as a “one-time-thing” to celebrate getting off parole, the document says.
For the meth possession, McGrady gave Ott a three- to five-year prison sentence, but layered it concurrently, or simultaneously, with his kidnapping sentence.
Ott also has to pay $1,065.06 in restitution to Minard.
Longer Sentence For Abuser
Campbell County District Court Judge James Michael Causey sentenced Minard on June 26 to between 10 and 14 years in prison, and ordered him to pay $3,000 in fines, plus $510 in restitution to the Wyoming Division of Victim Services.
Minard received credit for 210 days in jail during his prosecution.
The judge also ordered him to register as a sex offender.
Minard wrote a letter around the time of his sentencing, in which he apologized for his actions and pledged to better himself, and said he’d like to go to college.
“There is not a day that goes by where I wish I could take everything back,” wrote Minard. “I wish that I would have not made the bad choices that day. I wish I could take the pain away from the family I have hurt.”
Clair McFarland can be reached at clair@cowboystatedaily.com.
