A bench trial is ongoing for a Wyoming state representative being sued by an ex-boyfriend onclaims she cheated him of more than $6,000 for a ticket to a leopard- and elephant-hunting safari in Zimbabwe a few months before their breakup.
State Rep. Nina Webber, R-Cody, counters that she never asked her ex-boyfriend Scott Weber to buy a ticket to Zimbabwe for her, since their 2023 hippo-hunting trip to that country left her in fear for her life.
The first day of the bench trial in Cody Circuit Court unfolded Nov. 12, under Judge Joseph Darrah.
The second day is set for Dec. 10.
Advertisement
Nina Webber has not yet been cross-examined on the testimony she gave earlier this month.
The case also raises questions about Nina Webber’s current residency.
She gave up her Park County Republican Party precinct committeewoman seat “recently” this month due to having to leave her precinct amid the breakup, party chair Vince Vanata confirmed Wednesday to Cowboy State Daily.
Nina Webber and Scott Weber broke up in late June, according to the latter’s court testimony.
For the roughly five-month interval between those two happenings, Vanata said, Webber was “earnestly trying to find a place within her precinct to live.”
Advertisement
She’s now living somewhere “on more of a permanent status that its outside her precinct but still within her (legislative) district,” said Vanata.
Nina Webber’s resignation of her elected party seat doesn’t compromise her status as the Wyoming GOP’s committeewoman to the Republican National Committee, Vanata noted. She retains that role.
Nina Webber did not respond to Wednesday requests for comment. In court Nov. 12 she gave her address in vague terms as, in Cody, with friends.
Scott Weber’s attorney David Hill, of Burg Simpson Eldridge, Hersh & Jardine, referred Cowboy State Daily to the public court file.
The ex-boyfriend of Wyoming Rep. Nina Webber is suing her on claims she cheated him out of $6,000 for a Zimbabwe leopard- and elephant-hunting trip that followed an earlier safari to hunt hippo and crocodile. A bench trial in the case is ongoing. (Courtesy Photo)
Small Claims, Or Contract, Or Divorce?
Hill told the court on Nov. 12 that the case is simple.
Advertisement
It’s a small-claims action, where hearsay is allowed, and Scott Weber just wants his $6,000 back, said Hill.
Nina Webber’s attorney Robert DiLorenzo, of Virginia-based firm DiLorenzo Law, countered, saying it’s a contract case and the burden should be on Scott Weber to show that the pair had contract-like terms in place.
That would include a “meeting of the minds” on whether Nina Webber wanted her partner to buy her a ticket in the first place, he said.
Nina Webber testified that she didn’t want the ticket.
Scott Weber testified that she said she did, and peppered him with excuses after the fact as to why she could not pay him back when she decided not to go on the trip.
Advertisement
The ticket was nonrefundable and non-transferable, Scott Weber testified.
DiLorenzo pursued a line of questioning with both the man and the woman indicating that Scott Weber owed Nina Webber money for other things — like a $3,000 German shorthair hunting dog for which they split the cost, but Scott Weber now keeps.
This isn’t a divorce case involving global calculations like that, but is only a small claims case over a plane ticket, Hill argued back.
Hippos, Crocs And Buffalos
The pair started dating in 2016 and Nina moved into Scott’s home in late 2018, both parties testified.
They went on a safari hunting trip to South Africa in 2019, and another to Zimbabwe in 2023.
Advertisement
Scott Weber paid upfront for air travel and had Nina Webber reimburse him after the fact for these trips, Hill said in his opening statement.
That was so they could be sure to sit together on the plane, Scott testified.
They worked with a 20-year veteran of professional hunting, Ricus de Villers, with whom Scott had organized safari trips around eight times before taking Nina on one, Scott said.
Hill and Scott Weber discussed court exhibits: photographs of Nina Webber, with others, smiling alongside their African kills.
One showed a 6,000-pound bull hippopotamus the pair “took,” according to the testimony.
Advertisement
“She hit that hippo running towards deep water on dry land,” said Scott, adding that they donated the meat to the natives but kept the loins for themselves.
“Wonderful thing,” he said.
Another photo, said Scott, showed a “huge cape buffalo I got,” and Nina Webber — again wearing a “big smile” amid nine days of hunting — and another showed the pair “coming back from just having shot a crocodile.”
Scott cast the trip as safe and enjoyable, saying law enforcement flank the camp where they stayed, and everyone was armed.
The cook’s son had broken into the camp and stolen whiskey and meat before a tracker caught him and others gave him “jungle justice,” said Scott.
Advertisement
A black mamba also entered the camp, he conceded, but it too was dealt with.
“How in the world can you protect yourself from that?” asked DiLorenzo.
“You put him in three pieces real quick,” volleyed Scott Weber.
The pair saw elephants and evidence of leopard activity, and Scott started planning their next safari trip — to hunt elephant, leopard and other animals — with Nina Webber in agreement, he said in court.
Scott bought plane tickets for both of them Dec. 13, 2024.
Advertisement
That was about five weeks after Webber won election to the Wyoming House of Representatives, and five days after she’d received her committee assignments, Scott said.
Absolutely Not
The state representative cast the 2023 trip in the opposite light.
She said Scott barely spoke to her on the flight to Africa; and the camp robbery was dramatic and made her feel unsafe. Law enforcement agents were not close to the couple’s hut, she added.
She heard a camp attendant shoot the black mamba, and at first struggled to get an answer as to why the person had fired a gun before she saw the snake for herself, she said.
Nina said that when the hunting party drove among the locals, she, Scott Weber and de Villiers saw a group of about 200 people — almost entirely men — “hanging out.”
Advertisement
De Villiers told her not to get down from the truck. The men were “smoking dope and taking turns with prostitutes,” Nina Webber related from speaking with de Villiers.
“I understood why I wasn’t getting off the truck,” said Nina. “It did become very clear that with this safari … the natives had seen hunters. What they didn’t see was blond-haired, blue-eyed, female hunters. That was apparent.”
A group of schoolchildren also treated her with “curious stares,” and another group of natives sang a song that, Nina said, de Villiers translated as “white witch, white witch, white witch.”
She felt in danger and “literally” slept with a loaded rifle, she said.
‘Soured’
Nina Webber started gearing up for her 2024 campaign early that year, she testified. During the campaign, she and Scott “started having real differences.”
Advertisement
Scott testified that he’d asked her to pay back the $6,000-plus for the plane ticket as early as January, but she told him to wait for the stock market to improve after President Donald Trump’s Jan. 20 inauguration so she could pay him back.
She didn’t pay him back, though the market improved, according to his account.
She went to the state’s legislative session in January, and continued there until early March.
Wyoming keeps a part-time legislature. The delegates meet for 40 days every winter in odd-numbered years and for 20 days every winter in even-numbered years. They have some committee meetings during the interim between sessions. They take a per diem, travel, and salary.
When the session ended, Nina told Scott she wasn’t paying for her ticket, saying that, “I don’t think I can go,” Scott testified.
Advertisement
That was because of her interim committee meetings set for May, he recalled.
He testified that she knew about her committee assignments when he scheduled the trip.
He tried getting her to get a doctor’s note to obtain a refund, since she returned from the session sick anyway, Scott said. But the note they obtained wasn’t good enough for the travel agency.
He tried bartering with his credit card company but that backfired.
And finally, he learned that Nina could reuse her ticket by December 2025, but couldn’t get it refunded or transferred for him, he said.
Advertisement
“It culminated in late June,” Scott continued. “I said, ‘Hey, you ever going to repay me on this thing?’ She’s like, ‘No.’”
That was a breaking point, as Scott characterized it. “You haven’t been paying me rent. You haven’t been taking care of this place at all. I think it’s time for you to hit the road,” he recalled saying. “’But … before you leave, I need you to put a check for $6,000 on the kitchen counter along with the keys’ — and she didn’t either.”
Nina in her own testimony agreed that she told Scott in early March that she didn’t want the ticket, but in her telling, it was because she never agreed to its purchase at all.
She also said she considered it her duty to attend the interim meetings.
“It never crossed my mind (to take that trip),” she said. “Not Zimbabwe. Not with him. Not again.” It’s fair to say the relationship “soured,” she said.
Advertisement
She said that as soon as she had cellphone service, she started telling people what a disaster the trip had been, and that she also told Scott she disliked it.
DiLorenzo said Nina Webber told “everybody” how frightening the trip was.
The Other Controversy
Hill filed for a subpoena in this case for county records, which he said show that Nina either registered or re-registered one of her vehicles under Scott Weber’s address after the pair split.
If she made a false statement on the registration, Hill argued, she could be charged with the felony of false swearing.
The attorney argued further that this is relevant to the case because it goes to “her honesty and reputation for truthfulness.”
Advertisement
DiLorenzo bristled in a counter-filing, casting Hill’s subpoena as a witch hunt.
“As we suspected, plaintiff is not simply trying to recoup moneys he states he suspended on behalf of defendant, but is now trying to destroy her political career (with) false accusations,” wrote DiLorenzo.
Clair McFarland can be reached at clair@cowboystatedaily.com.
As a plaintiff in the 2022 lawsuit that kicked off years of legal sparring over Wyoming abortion rights, Dr. Giovannina Anthony had waited a long time for Tuesday’s Supreme Court decision on the state’s abortion bans.
“It has been a long road,” she said. One with ups and downs, drawbacks and delays. And even though the high court ruled against the state’s abortion bans, she’s not under the illusion that the fight for abortion access is over.
“But at least today, we can claim a victory and say, it was really worth it,” said Anthony, a Jackson obstetrician. “It was worth it to go four years and keep it up and keep raising money and keep the awareness going. I’m really proud of our team. I’m really proud of what we accomplished.”
In reading the Supreme Court’s decision siding with plaintiffs, Anthony said, “Clearly, this is a court that holds a lot of respect for our constitution.”
Advertisement
That’s because much of the decision hinged on constitutional language.
Anthony and other plaintiffs argued that abortion is enshrined in the “right of health care access” in Article 1, Section 38 of the Wyoming Constitution. The clause states, “Each competent adult shall have the right to make his or her own health care decisions.”
The state’s attorneys, meanwhile, countered that abortion isn’t health care.
But in deciding what that language means in this case, “all five Wyoming Supreme Court justices agreed that the decision whether to terminate or continue a pregnancy is a woman’s own health care decision protected by Article 1, Section 38,” the court’s summary stated.
As abortion rights activists in Wyoming and beyond celebrated the decision, the anti-abortion camp decried it and called for legislative action.
Advertisement
“This ruling is profoundly unfortunate and sadly serves to only prolong the ultimate proper resolution of this issue,” Gov. Mark Gordon said in a statement. While the ruling may settle a legal question for the time being, Gordon said, “it does not settle the moral one, nor does it reflect where many Wyoming citizens stand, including myself.”
Anti-abortion activists in the silent March for Life in Cheyenne in January 2020. (Nadav Soroker, Wyoming Tribune Eagle/Wyoming News Exchange)
Gordon asked the Attorney General’s office to file a petition for rehearing the decision, which it will file within 15 days.
The voters of Wyoming should settle the matter once and for all, Gordon argued. “A constitutional amendment taken to the people of Wyoming would trump any and all judicial decisions.”
He called on the Legislature to pass such an amendment during the upcoming session and deliver it to his desk. A constitutional amendment requires a two-thirds vote in both the House and Senate to appear on the ballot in the following general election.
Gordon may get his wish during the Legislature’s 2026 budget session, which convenes Feb. 9.
Advertisement
State lawmakers are already preparing a bill to modify the Wyoming Constitution and clear a path for another attempted abortion ban. Speaker of the House Chip Neiman, a Republican from Hulett, said that he’s been workshopping language with Torrington Republican Sen. Cheri Steinmetz.
“I’ve got to run it by a lot of other people,” Neiman said.
Reps. Rachel Rodriguez-Williams and Chip Neiman listen during a 2023 hearing on their request to defend Wyoming’s abortion ban. (Brad Boner/Jackson Hole News&Guide/Pool)
Ideally, he added, a single constitutional amendment would be considered, although the legislative strategy is still up for discussion.
“We’ve got a little over a month before we have to be in session,” Neiman said. “That’ll give us time to kind of see which is maybe the best plan of action.”
A constitutional amendment would have to navigate the legislative process in a 20-day session geared toward passing Wyoming’s budget. Then, in the 2026 general election, more than half of Wyoming voters who cast a ballot would have to agree to the constitutional change.
Neiman struck an optimistic tone about an amendment’s prospects of passing the first hurdle during the session in Cheyenne.
Advertisement
“I can’t speak for the other chamber,” he said, “but in my chamber I’ve got a lot of phone calls and a lot of texts from a lot of my legislators who are just beside themselves at what happened.”
Senate President Bo Biteman did not return a phone call before this story published.
Victorious
Chelsea’s Fund, an organization that helps pay for abortion services, was another of the plaintiffs that challenged Wyoming’s abortion bans. Executive Director Janean Forsyth said Tuesday’s decision affirms what her organization has long known: “that abortion is essential health care, and Wyoming women have a constitutional right and the freedom to make their own health care decisions, and that should be without government interference.”
Forsyth was flooded with messages and calls Tuesday, she said, especially from the community of reproductive rights organizations.
“I think that [the news is] a beacon of hope for, not only Wyoming communities and families, but also nationwide,” she said.
Advertisement
Christine Lichtenfels was Chelsea’s Fund executive director when the original suit was filed and throughout much of the legal battle. Relief wasn’t quite the word to describe how she felt Tuesday, she said.
“In reading the decision, there is just a sense that, ‘Oh, there is reason in the world,” she said. “It makes me think that, yes, Wyoming is the Equality State. We can say that now without cringing.”
(Disclosure: Lichtenfels is currently working with WyoFile on an unrelated legal matter.)
The Wellspring Health Access clinic in Casper is pictured in December 2022, and shows signs of May 2022 arson, including boarded up windows. (Dustin Bleizeffer/WyoFile)
Wyoming’s only abortion clinic, Wellspring Health Access in Casper, was also a plaintiff in the lawsuit. Knowing the decision would directly impact the facility’s fate, Clinic President Julie Burkhart was nervous when she opened it. Reading quickly dispelled her fears, she said, as it dawned on her that the justices sided with the plaintiffs’ legal team.
“We are delighted,” she told WyoFile.
Many people questioned her 2021 decision to open an abortion clinic in such a conservative state, she said. The court decision solidifies an intuition she felt back then about Wyoming residents’ sense of what’s fair and right.
Advertisement
Burkhart and colleagues expect future challenges to arise, however.
“While we celebrate today’s ruling, we know that anti-abortion politicians will continue their push to restrict access to health care in Wyoming with new, harmful proposals in the state legislature,” Burkart said in a statement. “Patients should not have to live in fear that their health care decisions will be suddenly upended at the whim of a judge or lawmaker.”
Across the state in Jackson, Dr. Anthony anticipates the Wyoming Freedom Caucus will attempt to pass laws that impose targeted restrictions against abortion providers — such as forcing patients to hear a fetal heartbeat or wait a certain time period before the procedure.
“Unfortunately, the fight’s not over,” Anthony said, “but this is a great moment for us.”
Heartache
Abortion opponents expressed sadness Tuesday and vehemently disagreed with the court’s opinion.
Advertisement
State Rep. Rachel Rodriguez Williams was lead sponsor of one of the abortion bans. The Cody Republican and chair of the Wyoming Freedom Caucus did not respond to a request for comment, but posted about the decision on X.
“My heart aches for Wyoming today,” Rodriguez Williams posted. “Thanks to the decision of four unelected, unchecked attorneys, it’s open season in Wyoming for innocent, preborn babies. Make no mistake: courts can get things wrong, and they sure did get this wrong. I’ll never stop fighting to protect life.”
Anti-abortion billboards can be seen along some Wyoming highways. (Tennessee Watson/WyoFile)
Wyoming Secretary of State Chuck Gray also protested the decision, which he called “outrageously wrong” and “a leftwing activist decision totally out of touch with the Wyoming Constitution.”
Natrona County anti-abortion activist Bob Brechtel, a former Wyoming House member, also expressed frustration with the courts, criticizing the nearly two-year-long wait for a decision and saying he was “ashamed” of the outcome from the high court.
In 2011, Brechtel co-sponsored the bill authorizing a later-successful constitutional amendment ballot measure that now protects individuals’ rights to make their own health care decisions. Born out of opposition to the Obama-era Affordable Care Act, what became Article 1, Section 38 caused some lawmakers to worry about potential unintended consequences.
Fifteen years later, one unintended consequence came to fruition. Reached Tuesday, Brechtel confirmed that he did not intend to protect women’s right to have an abortion in Wyoming.
Advertisement
“There was nothing in the legislation about killing innocent human beings,” he said. “This whole thing has been completely regenerated into something that it was never intended to be.”
It is Week 4 in the 2026 Wyoming High School boys’ swimming and diving season. It features several medium-sized competitions. After a dual in Douglas on Tuesday, Friday and Saturday are packed with meets. Jackson hosts its two-day invitational with four teams heading to Teton County. There are three-team events in Casper, Gillette, and Sheridan on Friday, plus two five-team meets at Cody and Rock Springs.
WYOPREPS BOYS SWIMMING AND DIVING WEEK 4 SCHEDULE 2026
Saturday also has swim invites at Evanston, Powell, and Sheridan. The schedule for Week 4 of the prep boys’ swimming and diving season in the Cowboy State is below. The schedule is subject to change.
RAWLINS AT DOUGLAS – dual
Advertisement
Read More Boys Swim News from WyoPreps
WyoPreps Week 3 Boys Swim Scoreboard 2026
WyoPreps Week 2 Boys Swim Scoreboard 2026
WyoPreps Week 1 Boys Swim Scoreboard & Season Outlook 2026
Nominate a Boys Swimmer/Diver For WyoPreps Athlete of the Week
Advertisement
3A Boys State Championship Recap 2025
4A Boys State Championship Recap 2025
3A Diving Champ Bryson Laing in 2025
4A Swim Champ Cy Gallion in 2025
4A Diving Champ Brady Benne in 2025
Advertisement
4A Swim Champ Ben Forsythe in 2025
Kemmerer’s Malachi Villarreal Reacts to Record Weekend in 2025
CASPER TRI at NCHS – Cheyenne East, Kelly Walsh, Natrona County.
CHEYENNE, Wyo. — A Wyoming man died Dec. 22 in a motorcycle-versus-truck collision in Laramie County.
According to a recently released incident report from the Wyoming Highway Patrol, 24-year-old Wyoming man Kyle Pandullo was headed west on a motorcycle as a van approached from the opposite direction. The WHP reports that the van attempted to turn left into a business entrance, forcing Pandullo to brake in an effort to avoid a crash. His bike tipped over onto its side, sliding into the van.
The WHP lists driver inattention as a possible contributing factor in the wreck.
This story contains preliminary information as provided by the Wyoming Highway Patrol. The agency advises that information may be subject to change.
