A former Wyoming reporter facing multiple felony forgery counts was arrested Tuesday after Laramie County Sheriff’s deputies tried to get her to come out of her home willingly, and ultimately lobbed pepper spray grenades into her basement.
April Marie Morganroth, 41, also known as April Marie Hamilton, Marie Hamilton, and other names, faces one forgery count in Laramie County on claims she impersonated a doctor and forged his signature to get special-education services for a child.
She also faces 16 more forgery variations and four counts of perjury in Platte County on claims she used falsified documents to lobby the Wyoming Industrial Citing Council about the reportedly harmful effects of a wind farm the agency was considering permitting.
All those cases are ongoing.
Hamilton was the publisher of the short-lived Wyoming Sentinel, a startup publication that has been inactive since late last year that covered Platte, Goshen and Laramie counties. Hamilton also has worked as a freelancer for Wyoming outlets.
Meanwhile, Hamilton was arrested Tuesday in a dramatic encounter with Laramie County Sheriff’s deputies, then charged for interference with a peace officer, court documents say.
The interference charge is a misdemeanor punishable by up to one year in jail.
The felonies range from five- to 10-year maximum penalties each.
Laramie County Sheriff’s Office spokesman Brandon Warner said Hamilton was still in custody as of Friday morning.
For her felony case in Laramie County, an arrest warrant was issued in April.
Investigators did not know where she was during the intervening months, but as of Oct. 8, they did, said Warner.
Laramie County Sheriff’s Detective Ryan Mershon had gone to Hamilton’s prior home on 363 JJ Road in Chugwater, but she was evicted from that in May, says an affidavit by Mershon.
He asked her attorney to have her turn herself in, but the public defender said she would not turn herself in and “would be unlikely to comply with us,” wrote Mershon.
Detective Keith Huebner previously called her, and she hung up, says the document.
“April Morganroth was currently a member of the Laramie County Top Ten most wanted,” the affidavit notes, citing the April 17 warrant.
New Cheyenne Home
Mershon learned of her new home, on Hickory Place in Cheyenne.
He watched her pull into the driveway with her son in a Ford pickup and park, he wrote.
Mershon knocked at the door while Huebner and Detective Miles DePrimo watched the side and rear of the home. The document says a youth answered the door and at first said Hamilton wasn’t home, then said she wouldn’t come out, Mershon wrote.
“We asked the minor to step outside,” he wrote, adding that deputies put the youth in a vehicle to keep him safe and from contacting Hamilton.
Deputies yelled “April Morganroth this is the Laramie County Sheriff’s Office with an arrest warrant, step outside with your hands up now.”
She did not comply, the document says.
DePrimo called for more law enforcement.
Mershon made more announcements urging Hamilton to “come out of the house with your hands up and empty,” the document says. “Failure to comply with my orders may result in the use of force, deployment of chemical agents, less lethal munitions or being bit by a police K-9.”
Cheyenne Police Department Officer Vapenik and his K-9, Rogue, arrived and Vapenik called through the front door for Hamilton to emerge with her hands raised, the affidavit says.
This continued for 30 minutes, reportedly.
Law enforcement personnel decided to enter the home.
Huebner breached the rear living room door and evacuated Hamilton’s dogs from the home into the backyard, where they were secured. DePrimo heard something in the basement.
“We observed a ballistic plate carrier and loaded AR rifle in the bedroom,” wrote Mershon.
A staircase descending to a 90-degree turn into an unfinished basement made a basement encounter look “unsafe,” especially with the heightened possibility that she might be armed, the detective wrote.
Huebner gave Hamilton commands to come upstairs with her hands up, and said she had a felony arrest warrant.
“April did not comply,” the affidavit says.
Huebner fired about five rounds of Pepper Ball Live-Maxx indirectly at the basement floor to disperse, the document continues.
Ten minutes passed, and Hamilton didn’t comply. Mershon readied his taser – which he wrote that he never ultimately deployed.
“I donned my gas mask and deployed a Pepper Ball Live-MAxx grenade into the basement floor area,” he wrote. That dispersed pava powder – a synthetic capsaicin – into the basement.
Huebner yelled down that the powder would not go away, and Hamilton needed to come upstairs to decontaminate.
After several minutes, she crawled up the basement stairs and “was moved into clean air” then handcuffed and arrested, the affidavit says.
The document says she asked authorities to take her to the Cheyenne Regional Medical Center, and they did by ambulance, with Huebner riding along.
She was soon cleared for jail, and booked.
Hamilton’s preliminary hearing for the Laramie County felony is set for Oct. 14.
Mental-Health Eval
On Sept. 26 in Hamilton’s Platte County cases, her public defense attorney Denny Harts asked the District Court Judge Scott Peasley to pause the cases so she could have a mental-health evaluation to see if she’s mentally well enough to participate in her case and understand its proceedings.
Harts said there are “grounds” for the evaluation.
Peasley granted the request, ordering a full report within 60 days of his Sept. 30 evaluation order.
This kind of mental-health evaluation is not the same as those tied to not-guilty-by-reason-of-mental-illness pleas, which factor into trials. Rather, it’s based on the idea that the state cannot prosecute someone who isn’t mentally well enough to understand what’s happening to them.
Nope
Platte County Attorney Douglas Weaver, in light of Hamilton’s arrest and new charge, asked Peasley to revoke her $20,000 signature bond, because she wasn’t allowed to break any laws while out on bond.
Here’s a juxtaposition in the case: She was wanted in Laramie County, but out on a lawful bond in Platte. A signature bond means the person doesn’t have to pay the money up front, but may have to if they break their bond arrangement.
Weaver’s request is pending.
The Platte County Public Defender’s Office said Harts was not available for comment.
Clair McFarland can be reached at clair@cowboystatedaily.com.
