Wyoming
Walmart Asks Wyoming Lawmakers For Help With Organized Theft
Walmart is asking Wyoming’s lawmakers to bolster the state’s anti-theft laws against sophisticated, multi-person organized theft attacks.
In response, the legislative Joint Judiciary Committee during its Tuesday meeting in Torrington voted to draft bills that would increase the penalty for misdemeanor theft, decrease the monetary threshold for charging felony theft, decrease the number of “strikes” required to charge a repeat shoplifter with a felony and add penalties for people who cross county lines to commit crimes.
The committee has about eight months to fine-tune, change or reject this bill draft ahead of the Feb. 9 lawmaking session.
Organized retail crime involves multiple people, working out a structured plan to commit targeted thefts, often to re-sell the items, witnesses told the committee Tuesday.
“This is something we see happening across all our stores in Wyoming,” Walmart representative Deborah Herron, who appeared via virtual link, told the committee. “It’s certainly something we’ve seen… and would appreciate the opportunity to make things a little better in Wyoming.”
Two lawmakers asked Herron for specific figures relating Walmart’s losses to crimes like these in Wyoming, and how those compare to other states.
Herron said she didn’t have those figures on hand but would get them within the next couple weeks.
Retail crime’s cost to businesses including lost product costs, higher insurance costs, increased price of goods and unrealized wages was $222.8 million in 2021 in Wyoming, the U.S. Chamber of Commerce reports.
The total value of goods stolen from Wyoming retailers in 2021 was $9,769,336, the report adds. And the lost tax revenue that year was $1,175,800.
Commerce, Plus Liquor
Walmart wasn’t alone.
Retail advocates, a law enforcement group and the state’s liquor industry also urged legislators to take action.
Dale Steenbergen, CEO of the Greater Cheyenne Chamber of Commerce and CEO of the Wyoming Chamber of Commerce, said the thefts are affecting other retailers across Wyoming.
A woman who owned a private meat market “broke my heart,” said Steenbergen, with the story of a man who held the fire escape door open to generate alarm while another man stole $900 worth of meat from the woman’s shop.
The number of people committing organized thefts like these is on the rise, the value of what’s being stolen is rising, and associated violence is also growing, said Steenbergen
Gone are the days when a clerk can tackle someone on the sidewalk without fear of getting shot, he added.
Wyoming Association of Sheriffs and Chiefs of Police executive director Allen Thompson echoed that, saying across his life’s work in the military and law enforcement, the most dangerous job he had was apprehending shoplifters.
“I received two stab wounds as a result,” said Thompson.
How We Arrest Folk
Thompson suggested that the committee consider changing Wyoming’s preconditions for arrest.
Those say an officer can arrest someone without a warrant for any crime they commit in his presence. He can arrest a person if he has probable cause that that person committed a felony.
But misdemeanors committed outside the officer’s presence are trickier.
There are some exceptions such as for the misdemeanors of domestic battery and DUI.
But generally, an officer can’t arrest someone who commits a misdemeanor outside the officer’s presence, without a warrant, unless the officer has probable cause not only to believe the crime happened, but also that the person who committed it will not be caught if let go, may injure himself or others or damage property, or may destroy or conceal evidence in the course of his crime.
Thompson clarified in a later interview with Cowboy State Daily that not all members of his group, “but some,” believe easing those preconditions to make it easier to arrest someone would help them better investigate those retail theft campaigns.
Often simple shoplifting crimes turn out to be part of bigger, repetitive, and orchestrated schemes upon investigation – but it’s hard to arrest a passer-through on a newly-discovered felony charge if he’s already left town with a citation, Thompson indicated to the committee.
The counties that suffer the most from those campaigns are those along the interstate highways, he said, but small towns aren’t immune either.
Not Doing That Just Now
The committee did not draft a bill to change Wyoming’s preconditions for arrest.
But, on a motion from Rep. Daniel Singh, R-Cheyenne, the committee voted to draft a bill increasing Wyoming’s ability to enforce theft.
The bill as now visualized would reduce the threshold for a prosecutor to elevate misdemeanor theft charges to felonies (which are punishable by up to 10 years in prison) for stolen goods of $1,000 to $500.
It would also increase the misdemeanor theft penalty from six months in jail to one year.
And it would decrease Wyoming’s “five-strike” shoplifting law, so that a person convicted of shoplifting three times – rather than five – could be charged with a felony.
Committee Co-Chair Art Washut, R-Casper, proposed another bill draft, which the committee voted to pursue.
That one would add a standalone crime or sentencing enhancement for people whose crimes cross county lines.
If a person flees one county to avoid apprehension, prosecution – or in the furtherance of a new felony – the crime could be added to their charges, Washut noted.
Washut asked for a maximum five-year penalty to be attached to that.
Clair McFarland can be reached at clair@cowboystatedaily.com.
Wyoming
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Wyoming
Rivalries and Playoff Positioning Highlight Week 11 Wyoming Girls Basketball Slate
It’s Week 11 in the 2026 Wyoming prep girls’ basketball season. That means it’s the end of the regular season. 3A and 4A schools have their final game or games to determine seeding before the regional tournament, or if a team is locked into a position, one last chance to fine-tune before the postseason. Games are spread across four days.
WYOPREPS WEEK 11 GIRLS BASKETBALL SCHEDULE 2026
Every game on the slate is a conference matchup. Several rivalry contests are part of this week’s schedule, such as East against Central, Cody at Powell, Lyman hosting Mountain View, and Rock Springs at Green River, just to name a few. Here is the Week 11 schedule of varsity games WyoPreps has. All schedules are subject to change. If you see a game missing, please email david@wyopreps.com.
CLASS 4A
Final Score: Laramie 68 Cheyenne South 27 (conference game)
CLASS 3A
Final Score: Lyman 40 Mountain View 26 (conference game)
CLASS 4A
Final Score: Evanston 41 Riverton 39 (conference game)
Final Score: Natrona County 42 Kelly Walsh 38 (conference game) – Peach Basket Classic
Final Score: #4 Thunder Basin 64 Campbell County 32 (conference game)
CLASS 3A
Final Score: #1 Cody 77 Worland 33 (conference game) – 5 different Fillies with a 3, and Hays led the way with 34 points.
Final Score: #2 Lander 49 Lyman 34 (conference game)
Final Score: #4 Wheatland 51 Douglas 40 (conference game)
Final Score: #5 Powell 48 Lovell 42 (conference game)
Final Score: Burns 56 Torrington 43 (conference game)
Final Score: Glenrock 78 Newcastle 30 (conference game)
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CLASS 4A
Rock Springs at #2 Green River, 5:30 p.m. (conference game)
#4 Thunder Basin at #5 Sheridan, 5:30 p.m. (conference game)
#1 Cheyenne East at #3 Cheyenne Central, 6 p.m. (conference game)
Jackson at Star Valley, 6 p.m. (conference game)
CLASS 3A
#3 Pinedale at Mountain View, 4 p.m. (conference game)
#1 Cody at #5 Powell, 5:30 p.m. (conference game)
Buffalo at Glenrock, 5:30 p.m. (conference game)
CLASS 3A
Newcastle at Buffalo, 12:30 p.m. (conference game)
Glenrock at Rawlins, 3 p.m. (conference game)
Torrington at #4 Wheatland, 5:30 p.m. (conference game)
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Gallery Credit: David Settle, WyoPreps.com
Wyoming
Political storm in Wyoming as far-right activist caught handing checks to lawmakers
Controversy has engulfed Wyoming’s state legislature after a conservative activist was photographed handing checks to Republican lawmakers on the state house floor, in an incident that has highlighted intra-conservative divisions and the role of money in the Cowboy state’s politics.
The political storm started on 9 February, when Karlee Provenza, a Democratic lawmaker, took a photo showing Rebecca Bextel, a conservative activist and committeewoman for the Teton county Republican party, handing a check to Darin McCann, a Republican representative, on the legislative floor. Marlene Brady, another Republican representative, stands in the photo’s background, a similar piece of paper pinched between her fingers.
“You have a person from the richest county in the country coming down to Cheyenne to hand out checks on the house floor,” Provenza said. “I have never seen something so egregious.”
Questions around the checks were soon swirling, and answers weren’t forthcoming. When asked what Bextel gave to her, Brady told a reporter for local outlet WyoFile: “I can’t remember.”
Then Bextel herself addressed the incident. “I raised $400,000 in the last election cycle for conservative candidates, and I will be doubling that amount this year,” Bextel wrote on Facebook on 11 February. “There’s nothing wrong with delivering lawful campaign checks from Teton county donors when I am in Cheyenne.”
Since then, it has emerged that the checks came from Don Grasso, a wealthy Teton county donor, who told the Jackson Hole News and Guide that he wrote the checks for Bextel to deliver to 10 Freedom caucus-aligned politicians. Grasso said the checks were intended as campaign contributions, and were not tied to specific legislation. It is unclear how many checks were ultimately delivered, but two of four confirmed recipients include the speaker of the house, Chip Neiman, and John Bear, the former head of the Wyoming Freedom Caucus.
The Wyoming house has formed a legislative investigative committee, and the Laramie county sheriff’s office said they’d open a criminal investigation.
Bextel declined to answer questions from the Guardian. Brady, McCann and Bear did not respond to requests for comment.
Neiman said he considered the criticism a “wraparound smear campaign”. He said: “It never once crossed my mind that this was bribery.
“These legislators, myself included, are now guilty until we can prove that we’re innocent. How is that right in this country? Isn’t that a little bit backwards?”
The scandal has highlighted long-standing divisions in Wyoming’s Republican party, which in recent years has seen a growing divide between old school, more moderate conservatives and a harder-right Freedom Caucus.
Several former Republican lawmakers forcefully condemned their colleagues for accepting the checks, and a local Republican party branch called for the lawmakers’ resignations.
Ogden Driskill, a Wyoming Republican senator, told the Guardian he does not consider Bextel’s actions to be illegal, but that “just because you can do it doesn’t mean you should”.
Bextel has spent years pushing against housing mitigation fees in Wyoming, and Driskill noted that she distributed the house floor checks just days before a bill she had publicly supported was set to be heard. Bextel was registered as a member of the press, not as a lobbyist when she delivered the checks.
“Ethically and morally, it’s bankrupt to a massive degree,” Driskill said.
Neiman said that he and other legislators who received checks have supported similar bills in the past: “Bribery is paying somebody to do something they would not otherwise do.”
Nationally, the 2024 election cycle saw record-spending from the mega-wealthy, as well as dark money groups. Wyoming followed the trend, in a tense red-on-red primary season.
For those gearing up to campaign this year, Teton county, the richest in the US, and Bextel’s picturesque home turf, is an essential stop. Its extreme wealth gives it a foothold on the national level as well. Palantir chief executive Alex Karp and Donald Trump attended an annual Republican leadership fundraiser at Jackson Hole in 2024, and JD Vance attended the same one in 2025.
Bextel pulls dollars from Teton county into the Freedom Caucus side of Wyoming’s conservative split. She hosted no-press-allowed meet and greets earlier this year benefitting leading candidates for Wyoming’s governor and open US House seat.
In an interview with the Open Range Record, a media network she co-founded, Bextel said controversy around the checks was solely because she was making “even playing field” in Wyoming against the state’s more moderate Republicans, who she calls “George Soros” candidates. She said that she will be sure to keep raising money – just away from the legislative floor.
“I guess I’m gonna ask all the gentlemen and gentleladies to step outside the Capitol while I hand them a check,” Bextel said. “Let me be clear: I’m doubling down.”
But it’s not just wealthy local donors putting their weight behind the factions. Last election cycle, out of state groups spent hundreds of thousands of dollars on anonymous and often inaccurate mailers.
“These actors, especially from the far right, they like to push the bounds of the norms,” said Rosa Reyna Pugh, an organizing and advocacy consultant at Western States Center, an Oregon-based non-profit focused on democracy in the western United States. “They like to see what policies they can kind of push, and see where they can play a piece,” Reyna Pugh said.
While Neiman and Driskill fight politically, they do agree on one thing: summer will bring an expensive and brutal campaign season.
“You’re going to see more dark money than you’ve ever seen. We’ve done absolutely nothing to enforce it. Our secretary of state has not even made a slight attempt to deal with it,” Driskill said. “You’re going to see lots and lots of outside money and I think you’re seeing it on both sides.”
As national questions swirl around pay-to-play politics and profiteering in the Trump administration, Provenza wants better for the Cowboy State.
“We should not be aligning ourselves with how the federal government is conducting itself or how federal elections conduct themselves,” Provenza said. “We owe something far better and more honest to the people of Wyoming than that.”
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