A Green River man who manipulated four underage children into performing sex acts on each other claims he didn’t entice the kids into “explicit sexual conduct” and that the 21-30 years he got in prison is cruel and unusual punishment.
The Wyoming Supreme Court disagrees in a Thursday ruling denying William J. Duncan’s appeal.
The justices didn’t buy Duncan’s legal arguments that even though he enticed the children to digitally penetrate and use sex toys on each other, that didn’t meet the legal standard for “explicit sexual conduct,” according to the ruling.
They also said, given that Duncan, 51, could have drawn a prison sentence of between 30 and 72 years, the 21-30 he got isn’t “cruel.”
“We therefore do not need to consider whether Mr. Duncan’s sentence shocks the moral sense of the people, and we decline his invitation to compare his sentence to those in other criminal cases,” the Thursday decision says.
A third prong of Duncan’s appeal also was denied by the high court — that the jury may not have been unanimous on some of his charges.
Duncan was convicted in July 2025 by a Sweetwater County jury of six counts of sexual exploitation of a child, two of endangering children, and one count of unlawful contact without bodily injury.
Because there were four child victims in the case, the county District Court judge imposed four sentences, to run consecutively. That includes three 7-to-10-year sentences and five years of supervised probation after prison.
The Convictions
The convictions stem from events that unfolded in about 2021 and 2022, when Duncan encouraged a pre-teen child into multiple sexual acts, some with an older teen and some with two other preteens, according to the Supreme Court’s ruling.
Duncan furnished sex toys and alcohol to at least one child as well, according to an evidentiary affidavit Sweetwater County Criminal Chief Deputy Attorney Micaela Lira compiled from the notes of Green River Police Department Detective Martha Holzgrafe and Sgt. Lars Nandrup.
Duncan did not testify at his trial.
The jury deliberated four hours after the trial ended, Sweetwater County Attorney Daniel Erramouspe told Cowboy State Daily at the time of his conviction.
The charging mechanism in Duncan’s case was unique, Erramouspe added.
“We charged him the statute that’s usually applied to child pornography (cases),” he said, referring to child sexual exploitation. “But the facts of the case fit it.”
Wyoming doesn't have a "grooming" statute, though the Legislature discussed passing one earlier in 2025.
Yes, That Was ‘Explicit’
The investigation started in January 2025, when a counselor alerted Green River Police Department investigators to potential criminal activity.
The victim spoke to police and gave a forensic interview that implicated Duncan in sexual enticement and grooming, and physical violence, the affidavit says.
Police also reviewed text messages between Duncan and the victim in which Duncan demanded the victim delete their communications.
Other text messages show the pair discussing alcohol and the child talking about being drunk; and others show Duncan discussing with the child the “practicing” of sexual acts, the document says.
The Wyoming Supreme Court justices also point out some of the specifics behind Duncan’s convictions, including how he groomed the child and tried to hide the behavior from other adults.
That’s included in what the court cites in dismissing Duncan’s argument that the acts the children performed on themselves weren’t “explicit” conduct, according to Wyoming law.
“Mr. Duncan’s conduct of encouraging the Minor Child to digitally penetrate and use sexual devices on (another minor child) constitutes ‘explicit sexual conduct,’ and the convictions … are supported by sufficient evidence,” Thursday’s opinion says.
Duncan also unsuccessfully argued in his appeal that there wasn’t enough evidence to support that he “enticed” minor children into sex acts, according to the opinion.
Greg Johnson can be reached at greg@cowboystatedaily.com.
