A Mexican national sentenced Tuesday to 180 days in jail for charging toward a Teton County Sheriff’s deputy with his box truck is trying to remain in the United States, his defense attorney said in court.
Ramon Gabriel Chavez Cruz, 46, pleaded no contest Tuesday in Teton County District Court Judge Melissa Owens’ court to one count of aggravated assault.
He was arrested the night of June 4, 2024, after waging what court documents describe as repeated attempts to ram his truck into multiple vehicles in the Snake River Canyon on U.S. Highway 89 between Alpine and Jackson.
The case affidavit, by then-Wyoming Highway Patrol trooper Mike Merritt, compiles statements by drivers and their families, who said they maneuvered in reverse and swerved into barrow ditches to escape Chavez Cruz’s head-on chases.
“The individual in the vehicle that attempted to collide with us deliberately crossed the centerline at a high rate of speed, targeted our vehicle, and attempted to kill my family,” the affidavit relates from the account of Roy Walters, who said he’d been in the back seat of a family vehicle that night while his son Eamonn drove, and Roy’s wife, Kate, sat in the front passenger seat. “By the grace of God and my son’s quick reactions the collision was barely avoided.”
The prosecutor, Teton County Deputy Attorney Claire Fuller, emphasized at Chavez Cruz’s sentencing hearing that only one of Chavez Cruz’s many, alleged head-on charges happened in Teton County.
The rest happened in Lincoln County, where County Attorney Spencer Allred is waiting to prosecute Chavez Cruz “to the full extent of the law,” Allred told Cowboy State Daily on Thursday.
Chavez Cruz struck a plea agreement with the Teton County Attorney’s Office, under which he pleaded no contest to one count of aggravated assault. That’s a felony punishable by up to 10 years in prison and $10,000 in fines. Fuller agreed to drop three more misdemeanors, including DUI.
And Owens, who accepted the agreement, sentenced Chavez Cruz to a split sentence: 180 days in jail followed by three years’ probation – with the threat of a two-and-a-half to four-and-a-half-year prison sentence remaining if he fails probation.
The 222 days Chavez Cruz has already spent in jail awaiting Tuesday’s hearing eclipsed his sentence and he’s to be released from Teton County. The Lincoln County Sheriff’s Office expects to take him into custody soon, a jail deputy confirmed to Cowboy State Daily Thursday.
That’s Allred’s understanding as well.
Chavez Cruz faces potentially much harsher consequences in Lincoln County, where Allred has filed eight counts of aggravated assault against him – one for each person he allegedly charged with his truck. Allred also filed a ninth count, misdemeanor reckless driving, which is punishable by up to six months in jail and $750 in fines.
It’s unclear what role, if any, U.S. Immigration and Customs Enforcement (ICE) plays in this case. The agency declined to discuss Chavez Cruz’s immigration status, writing in a Friday email, “ICE cannot provide any information on this individual.”
Chavez Cruz has a special kind of immigration visa indicating he’s been a crime victim, Trefonas told the court.
“He’s a victim of some incredibly severe, traumatic physical crimes. And so were his wife and children,” said Trefonas. “That all led up to these events: working 24/7; having terror, trauma in his life – and some drug use.”
Trefonas said Chavez Cruz has accepted responsibility in the Teton County case. He’s from Oaxaca, Mexico, and “he’s in a legal process to remain in the United States lawfully, irrespective of these charges,” said Trefonas.
Chavez Cruz told Owens, “For every impacted person in my case, I feel really, really sorry for what happened. I’m willing to take every step to fix the situation – here and Lincoln County.”
Broken
While nearly all the drivers Chavez Cruz is accused of chasing with his box truck evaded and escaped, Eric Leonard did not.
Merritt responded to the canyon area at about 10:42 p.m. the night of June 4, 2024, while the two counties’ dispatchers received at least a dozen 911 calls about a violent driver, the affidavit says.
Vehicle descriptions ranged from RV to “semi-type truck” and the culprit vehicle was identified as a box truck registered to Chavez Cruz.
He’d incorporated a transport business called “Your Freight Guys” in Aurora, Colorado, two months before his arrest.
The 911 calls kept coming. Merritt “was advised the large truck had continued northbound toward Jackson after running a car off the road,” so the trooper asked Teton County Sheriff’s deputies to track the truck down while he pulled off to investigate a white BMW, in the ditch with its front end smashed and its air bags deployed.
Two men, Brian and Nolan Potts, app were on scene. Brian was “visibly shaken up,” wrote Merritt.
Merritt found Brian’s friend Leonard in the BMW’s driver’s seat, emergency personnel “being careful” about pulling him out because they suspected a back injury.
Leonard said the truck crossed from its northbound lane into his southbound lane to hit them.
“I swerved hard because he was coming directly at me, head-on,” Leonard recalled in a Friday interview with Cowboy State Daily. “When we went into the ditch we went airborne. I don’t know how long we were in the air, but I know we crashed down very hard, and I felt my back immediately.”
He broke his L2 vertebra, Leonard said. As of this week, he still struggles to load the dishwasher, he added.
The three friends had been hiking in Yellowstone that day and were headed back to a cabin Leonard rented in Alpine, using the BMW – which was also rented.
“Had I been on the other side of the road, I would have driven down in the Snake River,” Leonard said. “And then I’d be – probably not talking to you.”
Witnesses, More Witnesses
Merritt interviewed a man and woman “hanging around” and trying to help. They were Michael and Kym Arian.
When they first spotted the box truck they saw another vehicle speeding backwards away from it as it chased to ram it “front to front,” wrote Merritt from the Arians’ statements. That backward driver was later identified as Josh Petrey, and his passenger as Kara Petrey, the affidavit says.
The box truck halted in the middle of the road. The driver got out of the vehicle and ran toward the vehicle it had blocked onto the road, screaming, “Why are you following me!” says the document.
The driver got back into the truck and “took off,” then “made it a point to drive at the Arians in an aggressive manner, trying to ram their vehicle off the road,” Merritt recounted from the alleged victims’ statements.
Michael Arian was able to dodge. Then he followed the box truck while calling law enforcement. And that was when he and Kym saw the crashed BMW and stopped to help, reportedly.
Why Are You Following Me?
Another set of witnesses, Brian, Jodi and Colten Cook, wrote a later email to investigators saying they were halfway through the canyon that night “when a big cargo truck pulled sideways on the road, blocking both lanes.”
They thought the driver was attempting a turn in a “terrible place to try and turn around, because he was blocking both lanes of traffic,” the account says.
Then the man got out of the truck and ran toward them shouting “why are you following me?” and the driver of the Cooks’ car threw it into reverse to escape him, says the affidavit. The Cooks said the driver got back in his truck and tried to “run over” a car headed south toward Alpine.
The Cooks kept driving, flashing their headlights at other cars. They watched other cars swerve into the barrow pit, as the cargo truck kept “chasing us,” the account says, adding, “This happened at least 12-15 times.”
“At one point he was chasing us and trying to run us over from behind,” the account says. “As soon as we were able to get cell coverage, we called 911.”
Zigzag
Josh Petrey’s email to investigators says he and Kara saw the truck parked across both lanes of the canyon and waited for it to move, but it was empty. Then the owner got into the truck, and Josh backed up to give him room.
“He then (started) trying to ram us,” the account says. “I reversed going between 20 and 30 mph. I zigzagged from one side to the other so he could not get any momentum.”
Josh Petrey assumed the driver got upset with this tactic. The driver slammed on his brakes in the middle of the road and got out of the truck, reportedly.
Josh Petrey rolled down his window to find out if the man was all right, he recalled.
“Have you had enough?!” yelled the driver, while charging the Petreys’ car on foot, says the account.
Josh Petrey sped past him and around his truck, where two other vehicles sat waiting. Josh rolled down his window and told the driver of a white truck to leave the area.
“We sped off and warned two different vehicles not to head that way, because the guy was unhinged,” wrote Josh Petrey.
He and his wife made it to Alpine, and within cellphone signal range, and called 911.
Merritt’s affidavit includes also an account from Marcus Loefverstrom, who recalled driving down the road with his wife and 11-month old son.
The family met multiple vehicles with their lights flashing “aggressively to warn me about something.”
The family saw a truck change lanes and head toward them; Loefverstrom tried to veer to the right into a rocky ditch, but realized that plan was no good, he wrote.
“I made a last-ditch decision to swerve into oncoming traffic to avoid him on the left,” Loefverstrom wrote. Fortunately, the lane was clear. But they narrowly missed a head-on collision with the truck, reportedly.
“My wife remembers waking up to headlights right in front of our car. A near miss,” wrote Loefverstrom.
Loefverstrom watched other cars veer off the road. The driver of a Jeep asked if the family were OK and when Loefverstrom said they were, that driver “rushed off,” he recalled.
Loefverstrom called another family member, who was still in town, to tell her not to leave town yet.
The Walters family gave a similar report, wrote Merritt.
The box truck crossed lanes “and attempted to head-on us,” wrote Roy Walters in his statement. Roy’s son Eamonn veered onto the shoulder, but the truck “tracked us and continued to try to collide with us,” the account says.
Roy’s wife Kate added that they were trying to get home to Etna.
They saw Leonard in the crashed BMW and pulled off to help him.
“He was shaking and moaning,” Kate recalled. They gave him a blanket and water.
Against The Guard Rail
All of that happened in Lincoln County, allegedly. The case to determine whether Chavez Cruz is guilty of all those claims is ongoing. It was charged two years ago: June 26, 2024, but is now becoming active since Teton County has concluded its case against Chavez Cruz, said Allred.
Teton County Sheriff’s Deputy Caleb Johnson was still in Teton County as he responded to 911 calls about a “crazy driver,” Fuller said in court.
There the box truck crossed both lanes and charged him so that he had to “suck up to the guard rail” to avoid being hit,” Merritt’s affidavit says.
Deputies converged, and stopped the box truck in Teton County. The truck driver informed them he thought he “was one of them,” the trooper wrote.
Investigators noted a Delta 8 edibles package in the truck cab, open and empty, added Merritt.
“Teton County got lucky in this case,” said Fuller at the sentencing hearing, adding, “The people in Teton County got lucky I should say. The defendant’s actions began in Lincoln County.”
Two Years Later
Leonard was frustrated Tuesday. He had a hot-mic moment in the virtual court hearing in which he called Chavez Cruz a “career criminal.”
He voiced disappointment afterward to Cowboy State Daily at the sentence Chavez Cruz received.
“I was mortified,” said Leonard. “And kind of sickened, to be honest with you.”
But the case isn’t over, as Lincoln County prepares for its nine-count prosecution.
While Teton County authorities charged Chavez Cruz one day after his arrest and he promptly bonded out, Allred didn’t charge the man for another 21 days.
At the time it seemed to Leonard that Chavez Cruz had vanished “into the wind.” He filed a bar complaint against Allred.
That didn’t rise to the level of ethical misconduct, Allred, told
But Allred didn’t even know about the case while Teton County authorities were both charging and releasing Chavez Cruz, Allred countered in his own Thursday interview.
“I was not even informed about this case until two weeks later. I didn’t have anything from law enforcement – they hadn’t given me anything,” said Allred, adding that without the investigation report, he couldn’t file the case.
Once he received the affidavit, he said, “I immediately filed.”
Allred also said the bar complaint went nowhere, since the claims against him didn’t rise to the level of ethical violations. The prosecutor will need to work with Leonard in the case ahead, Allred acknowledged.
“I don’t have anything against Mr. Leonard. He will certainly be a key witness in our case against Mr. Cruz,” he said.
Chavez Cruz posted a $15,000 bond and was released from the Teton County Detention Center soon after his June 4, 2024, arrest.
Then he committed crimes in Colorado, according to a booking document Cowboy State Daily has obtained, and statements made in court Tuesday.
Chavez Cruz told Owens he’s on probation; his attorney Elisabeth Trefonas clarified that’s due to crimes he committed in Colorado after the box truck incident.
Cowboy State Daily has placed a records request for that case disposition and charges with Colorado’s judicial branch.
When Chavez Cruz didn’t appear for a Jan. 28, 2025, hearing, Owens issued an all-states bench warrant for his arrest. Teton County collected him into custody and he appeared for court in December. By the time of his sentencing he’d spent a collective 222 days in jail – a stint that includes evaluations to determine whether he was mentally fit to face court proceedings.
For several weeks, he wasn’t, the court file indicates.
But Owens reversed course late this winter after another evaluation indicated Chavez Cruz had become competent, and declared him fit for court.
Trefonas said Chavez Cruz had also been found incompetent at some point in his Colorado case.
Meanwhile
Meanwhile, Leonard has also filed a civil lawsuit complaint against Chavez Cruz in the federal U.S. District Court for Wyoming.
That case is paused to allow the prosecutions to unfold.
It’s unclear if ICE has a detainer or other ongoing proceedings involving Chavez Cruz.
Clair McFarland can be reached at clair@cowboystatedaily.com.
