After he was accused of thrusting a sword through his bedroom door at police officers and sparking an 11-hour standoff during which law enforcement ripped open his mother’s Riverton home last spring, Ron Allington reached a plea agreement with prosecutors Wednesday.
The agreement says Allington, 63, could face up to five years in prison plus fines and restitution, but can argue for a lesser sentence.
Cowboy State Daily watched most of Allington’s April 16, 2025, standoff from a rooftop across the street and about three houses north.
Officers and deputies from numerous agencies surrounded the home with rifles and shields in hand. An armored vehicle from Natrona County remained in front of the house for several hours.
The Riverton Volunteer Fire Department and emergency medical personnel remained on scene throughout the standoff as well.
Allington posted about the incident on Facebook while it was ongoing.
Around 25 spectators gathered in the evening hours, though that dwindled after midnight. The back of the home was ripped open in an attempt to extricate the man.
At about 4 a.m., police deployed tear gas, then arrested Allington, who was reportedly armed with a knife and gun.
No one was shot.
Make Him Sane Though
Fremont County Chief Deputy Attorney Tim Hancock charged Allington with three felonies and two misdemeanors two days later, April 18, 2025.
Shortly after that, a mental health evaluator opined that Allington was not mentally well enough to face prosecution.
He was facing the standoff case and another felony case where Fremont County prosecutors charged him in 2024 with making terroristic threats, on claims he threatened to shoot up the local hospital, SageWest Health Care, while fleeing his own stay there that year.
A judge ordered a second evaluation for Allington last July, telling mental health professionals to decide if Allington could be made well enough to participate in his cases.
By Jan. 28, the evaluator, Dr. Katherine J. Mahaffey, issued her report.
The public cannot see the report, but Allington filed a Feb. 26 objection indicating that Mahaffey found him well enough to prosecute.
“Defendant objects to the findings in the Forensic Evaluation (regarding) Competency Restoration filed on January 28th,” wrote Allington’s public defense attorney Zachary Mahlum in the motion. “Defendant continues to indicate that he experiences hallucinations, both auditory and visual, and that these hallucinations continue to interfere with his ability to understand what is going on.”
Mahlum asked for another expert, chosen by the defense, to evaluate Allington.
Fremont County District Court Judge Jason Conder set a hearing so that Fremont County Attorney Micah Wyatt could answer that objection and both attorneys could hear Mahaffey testify.
After the March 5 hearing, Conder said Mahaffey’s testimony was credible and he agrees with her findings.
Those findings were that Allington “has sufficient knowledge and understanding of the legal process; and … he is able to cooperate with counsel in a rational manner — and any difficulty in doing so is his willingness, not ability.”
Both felony cases advanced after that.
The Agreement Says
On April 1, Allington established a plea agreement in which he promises to plead guilty to one count of using a deadly weapon — a sword — with unlawful intent.
He could face up to five years in prison plus fines and restitution.
Mahlum and Wyatt can argue at a later sentencing hearing about what sentence is appropriate in this case, and neither has agreed to a specific term.
As for the terroristic threats case, Allington already had pleaded no contest to that charge on Aug. 8, 2024.
The new plea agreement says he’ll take a “cold plea” on that charge, which leaves it punishable by up to three years in prison.
But the plea agreement says sentences for the deadly weapon charge and the terroristic threats charge would be concurrent, meaning simultaneous.
He won’t face additional penalties for a misdemeanor-level marijuana charge that the state had agreed to drop if he completed one year of probation, the agreement says.
If Conder rejects Allington’s plea agreement, he can withdraw his guilty plea on the weapons charge and go to trial or strike a new agreement.
More About That Standoff
Police later announced they’d gone to the home Allington shared with his mother the day of the standoff to arrest him on outstanding warrants.
He’d been wanted in the terroristic threats case since he skipped his own sentencing hearing the prior November.
Things went wrong during the arrest attempt, police said after the standoff.
Allington’s elderly mother answered the door. She was removed from the home while officers went to Allington’s bedroom door and ordered him to come out, says an evidentiary affidavit in that case.
“Over my dead body,” Allington answered, according to the affidavit.
The document says he also said things like, “That probation lady is lying about me” and “you’re going to have to fight me.”
Officers sprayed Allington with pepper spray using a metal wand extended under his bedroom door. They ordered him to exit again and again, the document says.
They tried to spray him a second time, but this time something blocked the wand.
An officer used a Halligan breaching tool to drill a hole in the door, and Allington thrust a sword through the hole about a foot above a crouched officer’s head, says the affidavit.
The document says another officer positioned on the west side of the house saw Allington point what appeared to be a handgun at him. Law enforcement later learned this was a BB pistol.
Officers withdrew from the home and established a perimeter.
That afternoon, Allington wrote a one-sentence post that read: “Thier (sic) going to kill me.”
Meanwhile, In Oregon
In Newberg, Oregon, his cousin Melissa Wear grew concerned. Then she saw a news story about the standoff.
She reasoned with Allington for an hour by phone and tried to coax him to surrender, Wear told Cowboy State Daily late last April.
Allington told her police had fired a smoke bomb through his bedroom window that had grazed the side of his head. When he picked it up to throw it back out, he cut his head on the broken glass of the window, he told her.
He also posted to Facebook at that time that he had a deep cut on his head.
Wear wasn’t sure if that’s exactly what happened, but she plied the topic anyway.
“This is a really good reason to step outside and get some medical attention,” Wear told her cousin.
Allington told her he’d patched up his head with a sock and a ski mask.
“It took me a little while (to figure that out) because he kept using a word I hadn’t heard for ‘ski mask,’” she recalled.
When it dawned on her that the barricaded man was milling around in a possibly blood-soaked ski mask, she was alarmed.
“We need to take that off,” she said. “If you’re in a situation where you’re surrounded by people with guns, you don’t need to have a ski mask on.”
But Allington wouldn’t take it off at that time, she said.
Finally Surrendered
The Natrona County Sheriff’s Office Special Response Team took command of the tactical operation at 8:45 p.m. Within that unit is a crisis negotiation team, NCSO spokeswoman Kiera Hett told Cowboy State Daily.
A crisis negotiator started giving Wear advice.
Then, Wear heard tapping at her own door.
She answered and met Newberg-Dundee Police Department Officer Jeromy Pilon, whom the Natrona County unit had called to her home.
Pilon reasoned with and listened to Allington for most of the night.
In his own April 2025 interview with Cowboy State Daily, Pilon also spoke highly of the personnel who were on scene.
“They were great,” said Pilon. “I saw no (cultural) difference. They could have been (my) next-door neighbors.”
Ultimately Allington surrendered about 4 a.m.
Clair McFarland can be reached at clair@cowboystatedaily.com.
