A Hudson, Wyoming, man facing a felony charge after becoming the subject of a vigilante sex-crime YouTube video in Lander pleaded not guilty Thursday to attempted third-degree sexual abuse of a minor.
Sean Brennan, 57, appeared in the Fremont County District Court in Lander for his arraignment, wearing an orange jumpsuit and shackles, with his grey hair bound in a low ponytail. He sat next to his public defense attorney, Valerie Schoneberger, and gave a short “not guilty” when Judge Jason Conder asked for his plea.
Conder noted that the charge is punishable by up to 15 years in prison and $10,000 in fines if Brennan is convicted.
The judge then set Brennan’s trial date for March 17.
When the arraignment was over, Fremont County Sheriff’s deputies escorted Brennan down the front steps outside the courthouse and into a jail transport van as rainclouds gathered overhead.
Ped Patrol
Brennan became the subject of a Sept. 7 YouTube video by Tommy Fellows of Colorado Ped Patrol.
Fellows organizes an operation in which adults pose as underage girls or boys on internet messaging sites to root out suspected predators who would target them for lewd text or photo exchanges or offer to meet with them for sex.
A sexual exchange between Brennan and a person posing as a 13-year-old girl led Fellows from his base in Colorado to Lander to confront Brennan at work, according to Fellows’ video of that confrontation.
Fellows invited Brennan to visit with him outside the logo shop that had employed Brennan at the time. Fellows showed the man a binder, which he said was a transcript of sexual conversations between Brennan and the decoy “girls.”
“Do you get sexual with them?” asked Fellows, after the two men walked outside together.
“No,” said Brennan, shaking his head. “I let them know off the bat.”
“So you’d never send, like, inappropriate pictures or anything like that?” asked Fellows.
“Nope,” said Brennan.
“So that phone on you has no child porn on it or anything like that?” asked Fellows.
Brennan again said “nope.”
Fellows said he could prove otherwise and asked if he should have the police come check. He then started flipping through the binder.
“I have three of these books, right? Three different children,” said Fellows, who also recounted a conversation in which Brennan had allegedly told the decoy that he’d had a 16-year-old girlfriend.
Brennan said the 16-year-old was emancipated and that he didn’t sleep with her anyway, but made the claim up for the internet.
“Do you beg minors for naked pictures often?” asked Fellows in the video. “You said ‘send me a picture’ and you got pissed off, then you said ‘listen little girl just remember, I’m not mad but don’t ever ask me for a picture again.’”
Fellows then accused Brennan of teaching lewd acts to one of the “girls,” of making sexual plans with her and sending her sexual pictures.
Brennan said in the video he wasn’t going to go to Colorado and actually do the things he discussed with the decoy.
Canned
Fellows also confronted Brennan about having been convicted of a child pornography crime while he was living in Arizona around 25 years ago. Brennan had to register as a sex offender for the crime, both men noted.
But Brennan claimed in the video that he didn’t have to keep registering as a sex offender after moving to Wyoming, and said Wyoming authorities told him that his Arizona child-porn conviction was “crap” by their standards.
Brennan said he was convicted after doing research on a public library computer about which nude beach to visit with his then-girlfriend, and some of the websites happened to contain pictures of underaged girls.
Brennan’s boss came outside demanding to know what was happening, and when Fellows told him, the boss — disgusted — fired Brennan immediately.
In the video, Fellows appeared impressed by the boss’ reaction to the news.
“If you guys know this area or you are in this area, make sure you come down and support this local business,” said Fellows in the video. “What a great owner.”
Lander Police Department On Scene
In the video, Lander Police Department Officer David Milovich responded to the store, warned Fellows that his license plate tags were expired, and noted that he’d worked with Fellows during a prior stint policing in Colorado.
Milovich started looking through the binder. He lamented that “Wyoming is way behind Colorado” in the strength of its sex-crime laws and said that at first glance, he didn’t see enough evidence to arrest Fellows on scene for an alleged felony.
Milovich later gathered enough evidence for a probable cause finding of the third-degree sex charge and arranged Brennan’s arrest, within hours of the encounter.
Clair McFarland can be reached at clair@cowboystatedaily.com.
