A Wyoming legislative committee meeting Monday in Cheyenne advanced a bill seeking to criminalize exploitative child “grooming.”
The 13 members of the legislative Joint Judiciary Committee who attended all voted in favor of sending the bill into the 2026 lawmaking session, which opens Feb. 9.
The draft published in the meeting materials would make it a felony to take actions that prepare, induce or persuade a minor to engage in sexual conduct or exploitation, “even if no meeting or sexual conduct is completed.”
It contemplates maximum penalties of 10 years, 25 years, or life in prison depending on the victim’s age.
People convicted of grooming would also have to complete a sexual offender treatment program and could be assigned to up to 10 years’ probation under the version that left the committee Monday.
An earlier version would have mandated probation for life.
Rep. Ken Chestek, D-Laramie, asked the committee to remove that provision.
“Being subject to probation for the remainder of the person’s life seems extreme,” said Chestek.
The members rejected his proposed amendment, but then adopted a different amendment by Sen. Larry Hicks, R-Baggs, setting a 10-year-maximum for the probation term.
Hicks had also supported Chestek’s proposed amendment, he said, noting a study showing that recidivism rates drop about two or three years after a crime — and probation is “so expensive” for Wyoming.
Sen. Barry Crago, R-Buffalo, successfully proposed a change making only people who are more than four years older than their victims — and older than 16 — eligible for grooming prosecutions.
Sen. John Kolb, R-Rock Springs, said the law change “is very much needed,” and that he’s spoken with the Sweetwater County Attorney Daniel Erramouspe about gaps where the law doesn’t address problematic conduct.
Brandi Sorensen, a Glenrock mom, voiced support for Crago’s age-gap amendment and asked for other safeguards to protect well-meaning coaches and teachers who are “ethically” supporting students.
According to statements and screenshots associated with a high-profile stalking case, Sorensen’s son was groomed at the age of 15.
Thankfully, said Sorensen, her son was not sexually abused.
“We can’t afford to reward predators who weren’t caught by vigilant, blessed or purely lucky parents like me before anything worse happens,” said Sorensen.
Lopsided
The bill draft still has what Chestek cast as a flaw, in a Tuesday interview with Cowboy State Daily:
It would send some groomers to prison for life, while people who commit statutory rape may face terms of no more than 50, 20 or 15 years in prison depending on the severity of the crime.
“It’s something that needs to be cleaned up if it gets to the floor,” Chestek, who voted in favor of advancing the bill, said Tuesday.
Another section of the bill is “badly written” because it contemplates a minimum of 25 years in prison when the victim is younger than 12 — but doesn’t specify a maximum prison term, he noted.
A section ascribing penalties for when the victim is younger than 16, conversely, gives both minimum and maximum prison terms, of four years and life in prison respectively.
The Future
Committee Co-Chair Rep. Art Washut, R-Casper, also voted to advance the bill.
He voiced concerns about fine-tuning a criminal statute that appears to hinge on future, not-yet-committed conduct, however.
“We’re talking about perhaps intervening before any of that (sexual) abuse or exploitation takes place,” he said.
Then, turning to Patricia McCoy, a member of the public who said her daughter was secretly groomed into behaving as a boy at school, Washut asked how one can identify the red flags.
For McCoy the signs were apparent, she said.
McCoy said she found a chest binder in her daughter’s laundry and noticed that school staffers had been calling her daughter by an alternate name.
It’s unclear if persuading a female child to behave as a male would fall under the bill’s definition of grooming as pushing a kid into “sexual conduct or exploitation.”
The bill does not target transgender presentation specifically.
Clair McFarland can be reached at clair@cowboystatedaily.com.
