The clock is ticking for Fremont County Republican Party leaders to nominate candidates, and for one of those to become the county’s next top prosecutor — after the county attorney of 10 years left the job Monday.
Fremont County Attorney Patrick LeBrun vacated the office Monday, taking a job as deputy prosecutor with the Natrona County District Attorney’s Office.
It was “time to move on,” LeBrun told Cowboy State Daily on Wednesday.
Though long anticipated, the move puts pressure on the Fremont County Republican Party Central Committee to nominate county attorney candidates within two weeks. The party has scheduled a meeting for 10 a.m. April 12 at the Shoshoni Community Center to vet candidates, and applicants have until April 7 to apply.
So far only two people have, though the party is expected to send three names to the Fremont County Commission, which must hire one of the three.
Fremont County Republican Party Chair Ginger Bennett told Cowboy State Daily she’s hoping more people will apply.
“My preference is to have more to choose from so we can send forward the best of the best — the cream of the crop,” said Bennett.
She’s cognizant of a statewide prosecutor shortage, the underwhelming pay (compared with many private attorneys’ incomes) and the top prosecutor’s brushes with “the worst circles of society,” she said.
The job offers a $98,000 salary, Wyoming retirement of 12.5%, and the county pays a portion of the health insurance.
Bennett said she hopes that to the right people, the job’s challenges will also be its charms.
“If there’s somebody who really likes to take on and figure out the best way to make equitable decisions, this is the job for them,” she said. “That’s the perfect challenge to some people – and those people exist.”
The Infantry Officer
The two applicants are Fremont County acting attorney Micah Wyatt, 47, of Atlantic City, and private attorney Jason Gay, 47, of Green River.
The Republican leaders may send forward a “straw man,” or person who doesn’t want the job and will withdraw his name before the commission, to fill the third nomination, said Bennett.
Gay, a former deputy prosecutor who worked under LeBrun, said he has strong family ties to the area and an address based in the county under which he can register to vote – to satisfy the residency requirement – during his transition to the area.
He spoke highly of both LeBrun and Wyatt during his Wednesday interview with Cowboy State Daily. He also spoke to the job’s wide range of duties.
“You have to be that safeguard of people’s rights, both as you’re making evaluations, determinations… as well as when you’re in the courtroom; or you’re advising the county commissioners or different county departments,” said Gay. “It just requires that type of devotion to public service.”
Gay graduated from the University of Texas at Arlington with a bachelor of science in mathematics and a master of business administration, from the University of Houston with a master of science in finance, then from the University of Houston Law Center with his Juris Doctorate (JD) degree.
He said he served in the U.S. Army as an infantry officer, finance officer and aviation officer before being medically retired. During law school he worked internships at the Harris County (Texas) District Attorney’s Office and for U.S. Immigration and Customs Enforcement (ICE).
He worked as a Carbon County deputy attorney before working for the U.S. Bureau of Land Management, he said.
Addressing his frequent job changes, Gay said, “I’ve never not completed a contract or something that I’ve said I would do.”
Gay said his prosecutorial style is best described as “rational.”
“Because a prosecutor’s job is not to win convictions: it’s to seek justice,” said Gay, adding that that means looking at each case through its specific circumstances.
That was also LeBrun’s style, said Gay, adding that he believes either he or Wyatt would make a “consistent” successor from the county’s elected attorney.
The Acting County Attorney
Wyatt has worked for the Fremont County Attorney’s Office for six-and-a-half years, primarily prosecuting juvenile cases.
Juvenile prosecutor is a “vital position that deals with some really difficult aspects of life,” Wyatt told Cowboy State Daily on Wednesday.
Often, juvenile cases are geared more toward treatment and rehabilitation, especially since the juvenile court can only impose sentences on people through their 21st birthday.
“But all the cases are kind of equally dear to my heart – but also heartbreaking,” said Wyatt, noting that he’s prosecuted other kinds of cases as well. He said he’s passionate about the job.
LeBrun named Wyatt as acting county attorney even before he’d left the office. Wyatt’s name has been appearing under the official title on the office’s charging documents for days.
LeBrun was the reason Wyatt first took the job, he said.
“I learned an awful lot from him about being an ethical and a just prosecutor,” said Wyatt.
Wyatt was born in Sheridan. He obtained his law degree from the University of Wyoming and worked in his family’s private law practice in Sheridan after that, before coming to Fremont County.
His style as a prosecutor is to strive for justice and adhere to ethical standards, he said.
“It’s a job to be done,” said Wyatt. “We only do what we can to be able to uphold justice – and there’s a lot that goes into that.”
It’s a prosecutor’s duty “to uphold those principles,” he said.
The Shoes You’re Filling
LeBrun, 53, was first sworn into the Fremont County Attorney role in 2015. He’d worked as a deputy prosecutor before that, securing five convictions on a high-profile 2011 double homicide in which the killers almost passed off two stabbing murders as arson – in the tiny town of Hudson.
Once elected he oversaw the county’s involvement in a challenge against the Environmental Protection Agency that ended with the 10th Circuit Court of Appeals upholding Riverton’s status as a subdivision of Wyoming, rather than part of the Wind River Indian Reservation.
He’s evaluated and made justification determinations on five officer-involved shootings.
Arguably the fulcrum of LeBrun’s career as an elected official came in April of 2020, after Gov. Mark Gordon issued gathering bans and shut down restaurants and many other businesses due to COVID-19.
People who violated those health orders could have faced up to one year in jail and $1,000 in fines, if prosecuted.
LeBrun vowed publicly not to prosecute people for running their businesses or for gathering. He was the first, and for months he was the only, elected prosecutor to make such assurances to the public.
If It Were You?
Gay and Wyatt gave differing answers on whether they’d do the same.
“I’m not going to second-guess Patrick’s decision,” said Wyatt. “Every decision has got to be taken in light of the circumstances that surround it.”
He’d make such decisions on as the circumstances of their time dictated, he said.
Gay said he agrees with how LeBrun acted, but said it feels easy to say that now – five years after the pandemic and having not suffered under severe health orders himself.
At that time he was working on munitions projects in Indiana for the U.S. Army. He wasn’t under the same difficult protocols that civilians faced at the time because of how the federal government regarded the vital nature of his work, he said.
The special treatment “bothered me,” Gay added.
LeBrun told Cowboy State Daily on Wednesday that he doesn’t regret his decision, though it was controversial at the time.
“I think everyone recognizes now that the restrictions we encountered (then) were unnecessary,” he said. “But I also think – looking back – it’s important to recognize that’s not something we’d ever been through before, and everyone did what they believed was right at the time.”
The Tough County
Fremont County is either the most violent county in Wyoming or close to it.
Of the Wyoming police agencies that reported crimes in 2023 to the National Information-Based Reporting System, the Riverton Police Department had the highest rate (crimes per population) for total offenses, at 11.1%. That’s compared to Cheyenne’s 8.3% and Casper’s 7%.
For crimes against people Riverton was again an outlier, at a rate of 3.9% to Gillette’s 3.6%, Cheyenne’s 2% and Casper’s 1.4%.
The Lander Police Department and Fremont County Sheriff’s Office did not report numbers from their agencies for that year, the data indicate.
Fremont County tends to be on par with more populous counties for its homicide tallies as well.
The disheartening numbers don’t tell the whole story though, said LeBrun. Much of the county’s violence is “intrafamilial,” or an outpouring of ongoing family disfunctions and feuds.
Stranger crime is rare.
“We’re not a drive-by shooting county. We’re not a car-jacked-at-the-stoplight county,” said LeBrun. “Those things happen but they’re extremely rare.”
Of Wyatt and Gay’s prospects of winning the job, LeBrun said: “I wish both men luck.”
Clair McFarland can be reached at clair@cowboystatedaily.com.
