Fourth man sentenced for hunting-camp confrontation

SUBLETTE COUNTY – Four men charged with a variety of misdemeanors after an Oct. 18, 2020, hunting camp confrontation turned ugly are seeing their cases wind down with plea agreements and dismissed charges.
One man – Phillip J. Peterson – has yet to be sentenced after changing his plea on May 27.
They were charged after an angry roadside encounter with Lloyd Hunt, a Big Piney man, and his family, court records show. Their six-person jury trials were set for June 8.
Peterson, Casey Trujillo, Adam J. Angelovic and Jonathan Crooks each pleaded not guilty in Sublette County Circuit Court to their misdemeanor charges during Jan. 19 videoconference hearings.
On May 17, Peterson’s pretrial conference was canceled after a plea agreement was filed. He was originally charged with one count of unlawful contact, one of false imprisonment and four of reckless endangering with a firearm.
On May 27, Peterson changed his plea to guilty of one count of unlawful contact and one of reckless endangering with the rest to be dismissed. Judge Haws heard sentencing recommendations from Sublette County Attorney Mike Crosson and public defender Rives White.
For the first charge Crosson requested six months in jail with all but 30 days suspended and 60 days of unsupervised probation. For the second, he sought 12 months in jail with all but 30 days suspended and one year of unsupervised probation, concurrent with jail time.
White argued for unsupervised probation with no jail.
Judge Haws took their arguments under advisement May 27 before announcing sentences to review two videos and a photograph Crosson submitted as evidence.
On May 10, Judge Haws had ordered all charges dropped against Jonathan Crooks – four counts of reckless endangering others with a firearm – at the request of Sublette County Attorney Mike Crosson.
Trujillo was the first to reach a plea agreement for the charges of stalking, unlawful contact and false imprisonment. He pleaded guilty to stalking and was sentenced to 365 days in jail, suspended, and one year of unsupervised probation. Judge Curt Haws dismissed the other two counts, records show.
On Wednesday, May 19, Angelovic was sentenced after reaching a plea agreement on the original charges of stalking, battery and criminal entry. He agreed to plead no contest to stalking in exchange for one year of unsupervised probation with a prohibition against drinking alcohol for one year, records show. The other charges were dismissed.