What do more than $3 million in political advertisements, a left-wing Texan sex therapist running for Congress and a Wyoming business have in common?

All have ties to a newly formed super PAC making national headlines for appearing to boost long-shot Democratic congressional candidates in midterm primary elections to ease the way for Republican victories in November’s general election. 

In the last two weeks, Lead Left PAC has reported spending more than $3 million on political ads in the battleground states of Nebraska, Pennsylvania and Texas, Federal Election Commission records show. It’s not clear who the political action committee’s donors are, but it’s spent big on advertising with a recently created Wyoming company. 

Some of the PAC’s ads have backed Maureen Galindo, a congressional candidate in Texas whose party leadership has condemned her for making antisemitic comments. Galindo faces Johnny Garcia in the runoff for the Democratic nomination in the state’s 35th Congressional District, which is located in the San Antonio area. The district was redrawn by Texas Republicans to boost their party’s chances of holding onto the seat in this year’s midterms. 

Still, despite redistricting, Democrats believe the seat could remain competitive if their party has a strong year politically, and they’re eager to avoid being saddled with a candidate’s inflammatory rhetoric. 

So, who’s backing Lead Left with heaps of money? FEC records don’t say. The PAC was created recently enough that it has not yet had to disclose any of its donors. In the meantime, Democrats are crying foul, accusing Republicans of bankrolling Lead Left to meddle in their primary elections. The New York Times reported evidence of such potential links earlier this month. 

The PAC’s website — set against Wyoming’s most famous mountain range — bills itself as “against MAGA extremists who will infect our country with Donald Trump’s agenda.”

One paper trail, however, ties the PAC’s spending directly to Piruzi LLC, a newly registered Wyoming business. 

Since May 7, Lead Left has reported 11 independent expenditures with the FEC, totalling more than $3 million in ads. All but two of those reports indicate the PAC paid Piruzi LLC for media production and placements, as well as printing and mailing political advertisements. 

Wyoming Secretary of State records indicate that Piruzi filed to become a limited liability company on April 10. Piruzi’s filings list a Cheyenne address and Tammie Cannon as the LLC’s organizer, along with a phone number and email for Paracorp Incorporated, a nationwide registered agent company. Reached by phone Thursday, two representatives for Paracorp told WyoFile it did not employ a Tammie Cannon but offered to forward a message to the owners of Piruzi. 

Wyoming’s business regulations provide a high degree of privacy as the law does not require a company to disclose its members or managers, effectively allowing the owner to remain anonymous to the public. The laws have helped produce the “cowboy cocktail,” a sophisticated wealth-protection strategy that combines the privacy of LLC ownership with a Wyoming trust. The state has also become a popular jurisdiction for shell companies, which are inactive legal entities with no significant assets. 

Shell companies are sometimes used as vehicles for illicit activity, which is what the Campaign Legal Center, a nonpartisan DC-based nonprofit, argues in a FEC complaint filed May 14 against Lead Left PAC. 

“In addition to strategically gaming federal reporting deadlines to avoid disclosing the sources of its election spending, Lead Left also appears to have violated federal campaign finance laws requiring full transparency about the recipients of that spending,” the complaint states. “Specifically, by funneling all of its spending on political ads through two newly formed companies that are almost certainly not the ultimate recipients of those funds, Lead Left appears to have violated federal reporting requirements.” (Emphasis in the complaint.)

The other LLC named by Lead Left in its filings is OTG Media, which was incorporated in Virginia on April 29, according to the state records. 

In “using these apparent shell companies as opaque clearinghouses to conceal who is actually being paid to provide it with goods and services, Lead Left PAC has unlawfully denied voters crucial information about how it is spending the money,” the complaint states. 

The FEC is unlikely to take swift, material action on the complaint, according to news site NOTUS, because the agency has gone more than a year without the required number of commissioners to formalize investigations or penalize campaign-finance scofflaws. 

Meanwhile, shadowy PACs have become more common in contemporary campaigns, including some in the Mountain West. One political action committee in Montana has fueled speculation after it sent out ads on behalf of underdog Democrats, Montana Free Press reported earlier this month.  

The Wyoming Secretary of State’s Office did not respond to WyoFile’s request for comment by publishing time. 

The email address provided by Lead Left PAC in its FEC filings bounced back an email Thursday when WyoFile reached out for comment. 

Reporting contributed by The Associated Press. Mike Catalani reported from New Jersey.

An outbreak of a contagious canine disease, particularly fatal for young pups, impacted the gray wolf population in Wyoming and Yellowstone National Park in 2025, with only an estimated “31 to 34” of the 87 documented pups born surviving until the end of the year.

Canine distemper, a contagious measles-like virus, was detected in 64% of animals in northwestern Wyoming, where wolves are classified as “trophy game.” While most adults are able to survive the affliction, the disease can be lethal for pups, with a 37% survival rate at the end of the year.

However, the wolf population in Wyoming “remained above minimum recovery criteria, making 2025 the 24th consecutive year Wyoming has exceeded the numerical, distributional, and temporal recovery criteria established for wolves by the U.S. Fish and Wildlife Service,” according to the 2025 annual report from Wyoming Gray Wolf Monitoring and Management.

At least 253 wolves in approximately 37 packs were noted statewide in Wyoming, including the Wolf Trophy Game Management Area, Yellowstone National Park and the Wind River Reservation on Dec. 31, 2025, according to the report. The state does not have management authority in the latter two areas.

Sixty wolves were reported to have died in WTGMA with causes of deaths including hunting (28), conflict control (16), other human causes (4), natural causes (8) and unknown causes (4), the report said. While the number was lower than in 2024, “the wolf population in the WTGMA decreased by 19% as a result of reduced pup production and recruitment,” the report said.

Yowlumni Disperser: First gray wolf spotted in Sequoia in over 100 years

What is distemper?

Distemper is a “contagious viral disease that infects species such as domestic dogs, coyotes, foxes, raccoons, skunks, and wolves,” according to the Wyoming Game and Fish Department. The virus attacks the respiratory, gastrointestinal and nervous systems of dogs and other wild canines including foxes and wolves, according to the American Veterinary Medical Association.

While the disease can impact canines of all ages, puppies are at a higher risk.

Symptoms include discharge from the eyes and nose, fever, coughing, lethargy, vomiting and diarrhea. As the virus attacks the nervous system, canines may also exhibit neurologic signs such as walking in circles, inability to follow a straight path, lack of coordination, muscle twitches, seizures and even partial or complete paralysis.

Distemper can be spread through airborne exposure to the virus from an infected dog or wild animal through sneezing, coughing, or barking, AVMA said, and can also be transmitted through shared food, water bowls and other items.

A former Wyoming minister sued on claims he sexually abused three boys in the 1990s denies wrongdoing and says the boys — now men — haven’t overcome the state’s time limit on filing such lawsuits by saying they discovered the abuse roughly 30 years after it happened.

The three men in late March sued former Wyoming Catholic youth minister Doug Hudson, as well as the Catholic Diocese of Cheyenne and Our Lady of Fatima Church in Casper.

They accused the diocese and church of three variations of negligence and one breach of fiduciary duty; and Hudson of sexual assault/civil battery, and intentionally inflicting emotional distress. 

They are requesting at least $50,000 per plaintiff in damages.

Hudson filed his answer denying wrongdoing and asserting the men didn’t satisfy the statute of limitations on Wednesday.

The Timeline

Wyoming allows people to sue for sexual assault within eight years of an affected minor’s 18th birthday or three years after the discovery of the alleged abuse, whichever comes later.

The plaintiffs say they discovered the abuse in 2024. They don’t satisfy the “discovery rule” provision, Hudson’s Wednesday answer asserts.

The church and diocese also filed a joint motion asking the court to dismiss three of the four charges against them. 

That motion says the men have failed to establish the church system owed them particular duties of care when they were boys, the church and diocese had no indication Hudson was allegedly dangerous before he was hired, and there’s no real legal basis to support the idea that they were negligent in retaining Hudson.

Hudson’s attorney, Ryan Semerad, told Cowboy State Daily his client never hurt the three men, including when they were younger.

“Mr. Hudson is a good man who cares deeply for the Church, the faithful and the youth being brough tup in the Church,” wrote Semerad in a statement. “He unequivocally denies the allegations made against him. 

“He has never hurt a young person in his many years working with many young people in the Church and schools affiliated with the Church across America.”

Semerad added that his client “has faith that the truth will reveal he is innocent of the civil charges against him.”

“And,” the statement adds, “while this untrue lawsuit has upended his life and forced him out of the educational career he loved, he is praying for all involved in this matter.”

One of the plaintiffs’ attorneys, Dallas Laird, declined Wednesday to comment.

As to the men’s 2024 discovery of what they allegedly endured as kids, however, Laird told WyoFile that sometimes people “don’t discover what happened to them until they wonder why their life has gone the way it has, and they go to therapy.”

Back Up

The lawsuit complaint claims that in the 1990s, Hudson sexually assaulted the three boys. 

It also says the diocese, an umbrella organization for the church, failed to manage Hudson and protect the plaintiffs.

The document says the diocese and church housed Hudson in Casper for conducting youth services, and that both diocese and church knew Hudson was inviting minors to his house on campus.

Hudson disputes that.

“His housing area was upstairs and a communal area for youth activities was downstairs,” says Hudson’s answer. “He denies that he invited any minors to ‘his house’ as in his housing area upstairs, but admits that he generally allowed minors to visit the communal area downstairs at appropriate times.”

The complaint says — and Hudson acknowledges — that the late Father Pietro Philip Colibraro supervised Hudson at that time.

The diocese lists Colibraro among church authorities with “substantiated allegations” of sexual abuse on their records.

One adolescent male reported abuse by Colibraro in 2005, the diocese’s list says.

The complaint says Colibraro was warned that Hudson was “plying adolescent males with alcohol” but doesn’t say who reported that claim. 

It says Hudson sexually assaulted Anthony Jacobson in 1995, Ryan Axlund in 1997, and James Stress in 1996 or 1997, at a hotel during an off-campus trip.

The complaint alleges that Hudson gave Stress “copious” amounts of alcohol and sexually assaulted him.

Clair McFarland can be reached at clair@cowboystatedaily.com.