A Wyoming legislative committee agreed Tuesday to draft a bill introducing harsher penalties for adults who stalk children, and another that would make child “grooming” a felony.
The move followed emotional testimonies from the Holman and Sorensen families of Glenrock, whose high-school-age children endured roughly a year of stalking from a 41-year-old woman.
The woman, Marcie Smith, of Glenrock, was sentenced in Douglas Circuit Court in March to two years’ probation.
Meeting in Torrington on Tuesday, the Joint Judiciary Committee voted to consider a change to Wyoming’s stalking laws so that an adult who stalks a child who is more than three years younger than the adult can be charged with a felony punishable by up to 10 years in prison.
The committee also agreed to study an anti-grooming law Montana passed this year.
Wyoming already has a felony stalking law with that penalty, but it only applies to stalkers who:
• Stalk someone within five years of finishing a sentence for a different instance of stalking.
• Cause serious bodily harm to their victims or someone else as part of the act.
• Violate probation, parole or bond terms to stalk someone.
• Violate a protection order to stalk someone.
If those criteria are not met, the suspect in a stalking case faces a misdemeanor of one year in prison and $750 in fines, maximum.
That’s a mismatch to what the Holman and Sorensen families endured, some of the family members told the committee.
“When I saw that in Wyoming, stalking was only a misdemeanor with no (enhancements for adults), I wept,” said Cathy Holman, whose daughter Gillian Holman was stalked.
The committee discussed tying potential penalties to different types of stalking evidence, but ultimately scrapped that idea.
“Keep it simple but solve the problem,” said Sen. Barry Crago, R-Buffalo, when making a motion to draft the new stalking felony criterion. “Keeping it clean, I think, increases the chances of us getting it through the entire process.”
The committee voted unanimously in favor of Crago’s motion to draft the bill.
The family had also requested the addition of new definitions targeting cyberstalking and bullying actions, which didn’t make it into the bill draft proposal. The committee can add those amendments if it wishes before or during the lawmaking session that begins Feb. 9.
Now, Grooming
Next, Rep. Jayme Lien, R-Casper, moved to draft a bill modeled after Montana’s House Bill 82, which takes effect July 1 since that state’s governor has signed it into law last month.
That law makes it a felony to groom a child by manipulating the child into sexual conduct or exploit a position of authority to “develop an intimate or secretive relationship with a minor.”
Lien asked the committee’s staff to draft a version of this bill requiring people convicted under it to register as sex offenders.
The committee voted for the drafting, with Sen. Larry Hicks, R-Baggs, saying it’s early in the interim session and good to keep multiple options open.
“I don’t know that there’s any harm in having another bill draft as a comparison,” said Hicks.
The Case
Evidence surfaced last year that Smith was behind a yearlong effort to make Gillian, who is now 17 but was 15 when the onslaught started, look like a bully who was cruel and promiscuous.
In some texts, Smith impersonated Gillian; others were worded as if they were from a teacher or parent voicing concerns about Gillian’s behavior, according to interviews with the Holman family and screenshots from the case.
Gillian also received sexualized texts which led her to think that her stalker was a male preparing to attack her sexually, she said.
She looked over her shoulder then, but she’s still looking over her shoulder out of fear that she’ll run into Smith at community events, Gillian told the committee.
“She gets to sit mere feet away from me as I cheer on my best friend at basketball games or while I take part in our town’s tradition known as grand march for prom,” the teen said.
On Sunday, added Gillian, she was scared to enter the gym hosting the graduation ceremony out of fear Smith would be there.
“Instead of getting to have what most would consider a normal life, I find myself missing school … meeting with the victim advocate’s office,” said Gillian.
Sitting in a nectarine-colored button-up shirt between her two parents Cathy and Dan Holman, the teen started to cry. Dan placed one arm around her shoulders.
“It’s not easy to continuously share what happened,” she said through the tears. “But I have to at least try to make it better for future stalking victims in Wyoming.”
Smith received a sentence of probation because there were concerns about the breadth of a search warrant in the case. The family didn’t want to risk losing the case altogether and the protection-order components of Smith’s probation that were designed to keep the woman away from the teens as they finished high school, the Holman family told the committee.
Cathy Holman told the committee that Smith may be transgressing the "grey areas" of the no-contact provisions attached to her probation terms. The parties are scheduled to attend a protection order hearing Thursday, Cathy told Cowboy State Daily in a follow-up text message.
The Odd Texts
Gillian’s friend, and now boyfriend, Preston Sorensen also endured months of what his parents called “grooming” and harrowing behavior by Smith.
Smith tried to coerce Preston into dating her own daughter when the pair broke up after freshman year. She encouraged the teen to send her daughter a photograph of himself in his underwear, screenshots show.
Preston’s mother Brandi Sorenson joined the Holmans in urging the committee to bolster the law during Tuesday’s meeting.
She characterized Smith’s behavior as a psychological campaign that left her 6-foot, 5-inch athletic teenage son living in terror, from the onslaughts of someone “representing herself as a trusted adult.”
Once their testimony was over at least one lawmaker — Rep. Joe Webb, R-Lyman — had dissolved into tears.
Rep. Tom Kelly, R-Sheridan, appeared emotional and clarified in a later text that he was biting the inside of his mouth to avoid mouthing a profane word.
Clair McFarland can be reached at clair@cowboystatedaily.com.
