The judge overseeing a small claims case in which a state legislator’s ex-boyfriend accused her of cheating him of $6,000 for a ticket to an African hunting safari has dismissed the case altogether.
The ex-boyfriend, Scott Weber, says Rep. Nina Webber, R-Cody, concocted outlandish stories to secure the dismissal, which was handed down last week. He says he will appeal the case to a higher court.
“This trial showed that your elected official lied under oath,” wrote Scott Weber in a Dec. 24 email to Cowboy State Daily. “Unconscionable. What does that say about her credibility?
"We will appeal. Surely an appellate judge looking at our documents will see through her lies and bombastic fabrications.”
Nina Webber, conversely, posted to her Facebook page after the dismissal a statement saying that “Truth WINS,” and, “Thank you for all who stood by me. I appreciate those who, even though we may not always agree politically, saw past this personal attack. God Bless.”
Nina Webber did not respond to a Cowboy State Daily request for comment by publication.
Verbal Contract?
The crux of the case was whether Nina Webber and Scott Weber had a verbal or other contract, in which he was to buy her more-than $6,000 plane ticket to a Zimbabwe hunting safari, and she was to reimburse him later.
The safari was slated for May 2025. Webber was elected to her legislative seat Nov. 5, 2024.
Over the course of two days of the bench trial in Cody Circuit Court — one Nov. 12 and one Dec. 23 — Webber testified that she refused to go back to Zimbabwe after a disastrous trip she and Scott Weber took there in 2023.
Scott Weber testified that Nina Webber had a great time in 2023, and that she concocted stories about menacing natives and exaggerated the other events of that trip to deflect from her involvement in planning the 2025 trip and to dodge paying for her ticket.
The pair broke up when Scott Weber kicked Nina Webber out of his Cody home in June, according to court testimony.
This prompted questioning by Scott Weber’s attorney David Hill, in which Nina Webber admitted to living outside of her precinct before giving up another political seat she held as precinct committee woman for the Park County Republican Party.
‘White Witch'
Cody Circuit Court Judge Joseph Darrah announced after the second day of the severed pair’s two-day trial that he believes Nina Webber’s account about the horrors of the 2023 Zimbabwe trip, and not wanting to go back in 2025.
She testified in November that in Zimbabwe in 2023, a group of natives who saw her sang a song that her hunting guide translated as: “white witch, white witch, white witch.”
“I believe that occurred in this case,” said Darrah last week just before dismissing the case.
And because of her “long blonde hair” and the rarity of seeing white people, he said that “it would be very intriguing and (it’s feasible) how they may consider her to be a witch.”
The judge continued: “I believe that happened. I believe that was unnerving for her.”
Scott Weber characterized that episode as a fiction.
He said another of Nina Webber’s accounts, of between 200 and 300 villagers gathering, and some of those taking turns with prostitutes was also outlandish.
There weren’t that many people in any one village, said Scott Weber during a second testimony last week.
As for other accounts — the incursion of a black mamba snake into the camp and the cook’s son robbing the camp — Scott Weber said Nina Webber exaggerated these, and that she and other hunters know to expect hazards on a hunting safari.
Scott Weber may take these things more casually than Nina Webber does because he’s not a woman, Darrah indicated in his ruling.
“I don’t disagree he (Scott) wouldn’t think it was a big deal,” said Darrah. “But I do think it was to Ms. Webber, under the circumstances. A reasonable person, and a woman, in that situation, would feel that way.”
Schedules, Schedules
Another argument Nina Webber had raised was that after her election, she knew she’d have legislative committee meetings and would be too busy for a safari hunt in mid-May, and so wouldn’t agree to buy the ticket.
Hill questioned her on inconsistencies in her testimony.
She testified in November that she didn’t know about the ticket until March, around the end of the legislative session, Hill recounted.
Yet, said Hill, a letter her attorney sent in July said that before Scott Weber bought the tickets on Dec. 13, 2024, she told him she had legislative obligations that would keep her from the trip.
The legislative interim calendar was not yet out at that time, Hill noted.
Webber said there was a “tentative schedule,” and she knew the month, but not the exact dates.
Ultimately, the committee meeting at issue unfolded May 21-22, within the span of days for which the trip was also scheduled.
“Do you know the month of any of your interim meetings for next year?” asked Hill in the trial last week.
“Not for next year,” said Nina Webber. “We just completed this year.”
“So you knew it last year but you don’t know it this year?” Hill volleyed.
Before the disputed May meetings, Nina Webber had missed at least one day of the legislative session, Jan. 20, to attend President Donald Trump’s inauguration, according to the House Minerals Committee Chair’s public statement at the time.
She was marked “excused” for the House roll call Jan. 21 as well.
Her Temerity
Nina Webber’s attorney Robert DiLorenzo in his own line of questioning emphasized that she had run for the state House twice prior and lost — succeeding only the third time.
She was excited to serve, and it reshaped her commitments, Nina Webber confirmed under her lawyer’s questioning.
Darrah’s ruling echoed that stance.
“I admire her temerity and tenacity to continue, and to put herself out there,” the judge said.
The judge recounted how difficult it was for him to overcome rejections on his own prior applications to become a judge.
“And people that do run for public office, they should be commended for putting themselves out there and giving the public a choice of how they want the law to be implemented in the future,” he said.
Darrah called it reasonable to expect that Nina Webber’s priorities were shifting even as Scott Weber was planning the trip.
“And this was a dream trip for him, there’s no question,” said the judge. “But this was not a dream trip for her.”
Her priorities had changed, he said, “and I don’t believe that she ever consented to this. So I find that there’s not a contract.”
Darrah under his own questioning found that Nina Webber had another commitment in mid-May to attend a Republican National Committee event as the state party’s national committeewoman, which is another political post she holds.
Closing
Hill in his closing argument called Nina Webber’s assertions illogical.
He questioned why Scott Weber would spend more than $6,000 on a plane ticket, bought while Webber was at least on his property if not in the same room as he, with no indication that she’d go, and amid historical instances of her reimbursing him for similar trips.
“What’s particularly interesting to me,” said Hill, “is that Ms. Webber’s theory of the case — at least before the case was filed — was, ‘I couldn’t go because I had legislative obligations.’”
That theory shifted later to incorporate Nina Webber detailing the “bad time” she’d had in 2023, and indications that their relationship had been falling apart for a while, said Hill.
“It’s hard for me to juggle Ms. Webber’s position because it’s changed,” he added.
DiLorenzo in his closing argument said that Hill and Scott Weber had failed to meet their burden of proof showing that a contract existed between the pair.
“The proof has got to be certain and it’s got to be specific,” he said. “There’s no corroborating evidence for what his position is. No situational evidence for what his position is.”
And yet, said DiLorenzo, there’s “nothing. No evidence she had anything to do with the 2025 trip.”
DiLorenzo said also, that “no reasonable person” who’d just been freshly elected to the state House would leave “for weeks at a time.”
He also seized on some tangential testimony by Scott Weber, in which he’d recalled telling Nina Webber to cover her blonde hair with her cap.
That’s because it was dangerous for her to show her unique hair in Zimbabwe, DiLorenzo theorized.
Darrah thanked the attorneys for preparing their presentations well before dismissing the case.
A Little Background
The pair started dating in 2016 and Nina moved into Scott’s home in late 2018, both parties testified.
They went on a safari hunting trip to South Africa in 2019, and another to Zimbabwe in 2023.
Photographs of their African kills showed a 6,000-pound bull hippopotamus the pair “took,” according to court testimony.
Another photo, said Scott, showed a “huge cape buffalo I got,” and another showed the pair “coming back from just having shot a crocodile.”
He testified that the 2025 trip was supposed to be for hunting elephant, leopard and other animals.
Clair McFarland can be reached at clair@cowboystatedaily.com.
