A Cody woman accused of wiping her husband’s phone clean after he was arrested on suspicion of child sex crimes faces up to 6.5 years in prison and fines if convicted.
Amanda Parks is out of jail on a surety bond, charged with one count of felony perjury and three counts of being an accessory after the fact to other crimes, her court file says.
She’s scheduled for a preliminary hearing Thursday in Cody Circuit Court.
Her husband James “Jimmy” Parks is also set for a Thursday preliminary hearing on two counts of perjury, based on allegations that he lied to the court about how many vehicles and how much property he owns while applying for a publicly funded defense attorney.
Jimmy Parks has an ongoing sex abuse case in the Park County District Court, his file indicates.
But Park County District Court Judge Bill Simpson opted to seal that case, the Park County District Court Clerk’s Office confirmed Tuesday to Cowboy State Daily.
As long as the case is sealed, the public cannot access it.
Jimmy Parks is in the Park County Detention Center on a bond of $210,000, the jail roster says.
How It Started
A juvenile male disclosed on Oct. 16 that Jimmy Parks sexually abused him at a business in Cody and another Park County location, says an evidentiary affidavit Cody Police Department Detective Tyler Eubanks filed last month in Amanda Parks’ perjury case.
That affidavit alludes to Jimmy Parks’ sealed case, saying Park County Sheriff’s Office personnel “developed probable cause to arrest James Parks for sexual abuse of a minor in the first degree and promoting obscenity.”
Investigators arrested and searched Jimmy Parks the day of the sex crime report but didn’t find a cellphone on him, Eubanks wrote.
The next day, Park County Sheriff’s Deputy Jeremiah Ringler sought and received a search warrant for Jimmy Parks’ vehicle and his cellphone, but again, the investigator didn’t find a cellphone, wrote Eubanks.
Jimmy Parks had been in that vehicle right before his arrest, the detective noted.
Cody Police Department Detective Sgt. Trapp Heydenberk sought and received a search warrant for Jimmy Parks IT business in Cody to get his laptop.
Eubanks wrote that there as well, “a cellphone was not observed.”
On Oct. 20, investigators deployed another search warrant at the business, specifically authorizing them to seize Jimmy Parks’ cellphone, the detective wrote.
Again, they didn’t find it.
Weaving
Eubanks’ affidavit weaves together the instances of missing evidence with where Amanda Parks was during the searches.
“I know that Amanda Parks had been to the PC Cowboys (business) office after this warrant was executed and received a copy of the warrant and the inventory showing what was seized,” the affidavit says.
Ringler then sought and received a warrant to search the pair’s home, and investigators did so the evening of Oct. 23, reportedly.
“We found the Parks’ residence to be apparently unoccupied,” Eubanks wrote.
Ringler called Amanda to try to gain entry without damaging the home. He told her they were searching for the cellphone and other evidence, says the document.
According to Eubanks’ account, she said words to the effect of, “(You) were too late,” before providing unprompted indications about where the evidence might have been.
Once in the home, Ringler called Jimmy Parks’ cellphone number to make the phone chime so he could find it, the affidavit says.
Amanda answered, Eubanks wrote, adding that she told Ringler she’d “just picked up his phone from the office.”
Within minutes, Amanda Parks handed the phone over to a sheriff’s deputy, the affidavit says.
Eubanks sought and received a warrant to search the phone since he believed evidence of Parks’ alleged sex crimes was within it.
It had been factory reset, or “wiped” minutes before Ringler called it and spoke to Amanda on it, Eubanks wrote.
She also had put a new passcode on the phone so it would appear it was in a running state, and told investigators the passcode was "an apparent act of goodwill,” the detective added.
“The likely reason for her cooperating is that she knew the device was of no evidentiary value,” theorized Eubanks, citing “deeper analysis” of her motives.
A Memory Card
Heydenberk and Eubanks interviewed an employee of the IT company on Oct. 31.
The man said he knew Jimmy Parks had left his cellphone on his desk when he left his office Oct. 16, the affidavit relates.
At that time, Jimmy Parks told the employee to remove a solid state drive, but didn’t tell the employee why that was necessary, the document says.
The employee indicated the business’ surveillance video may have been stored on that drive.
In a jail call the evening of Oct. 21, Jimmy and Amanda were “conspiring to destroy” the memory drive, Eubanks wrote.
He related a quote by Jimmy, saying “that thing can just get, umm, like, I know (a certain person) likes to break things into tiny little pieces.”
Amanda reportedly answered: “Yup.”
Jimmy also asked if Amanda had been to see the employee, the affidavit says.
As of his Nov. 21 signing of the interview, Eubanks had been unable to schedule an interview with Amanda. Investigators don’t know where the memory drive is, the detective added.
Amanda did not answer a Tuesday phone call Cowboy State Daily placed to her court-listed cellphone.
Her attorney William Appleton did not immediately respond to a voicemail request for comment.
Sam Krone, who represented Jimmy Parks in Cody Circuit Court, did not immediately respond to a phone message request for comment.
Tallies
Amanda’s perjury count is punishable by up to five years in prison and $5,000 in fines. Each of her three accessory counts is punishable by up to six months in jail and $750 in fines.
Jimmy Parks’ two perjury counts are each punishable by up to five years in prison and $5,000 in fines.
He faces three felony charges in his sex case as well, however.
The Powell Tribune, which covered Jimmy Parks’ initial bond hearing before the case reached Simpson’s court and became subject to his seal order, wrote that a teen reported to the sheriff’s office that Jimmy Parks showed him pornography and sexually touched him starting in 2024 until October of this year.
Charging documents allege that Jimmy Parks directed the teen to perform sex acts on him. The teen told a counselor, who contacted law enforcement, leading to Jimmy Parks’ arrest hours later after the sheriff’s office interviewed the juvenile, the Tribune reported.
The jail log denotes those charges more specifically, as one count of child abuse for mentally injuring a child, which is punishable by up to 10 years in prison; one count of first-degree sexual abuse of a minor, which is punishable by up to 50 years in prison; and one count of second-degree sexual abuse of a minor, which is punishable by up to 20 years in prison.
Clair McFarland can be reached at clair@cowboystatedaily.com.
