Hunters sue over prosecution

Hunters sue over prosecution
 
By CJ Baker
Powell Tribune
Via Wyoming News Exchange
 
POWELL — In 2020, a Park County jury cleared two out-of-state hunters of allegations that they killed and wasted elk on Heart Mountain. Now, the men are suing the Wyoming Game and Fish Department, saying they never should have been cited and prosecuted. 
The Wyoming Attorney General’s Office, however, says the two hunters waited too long to file their suit and that their complaint must be thrown out. 
Dr. Blendi Cumani of North Dakota and Roland Shehu of Pennsylvania filed suit in Park County’s District Court last month, asserting that Powell Game Warden Chris Queen and others falsely detained and wrongfully prosecuted them. 
Cumani and Shehu were never taken into custody, but they say the warden “ordered” them to stay in Park County during his investigation, amounting to wrongful detention and arrest. The hunters also allege they were maliciously prosecuted by Queen and others. 
“Because the criminal proceedings were instituted without objectively and subjectively reasonable probable cause and because the evidence … reasonably demonstrated that Dr. Cumani and Mr. Shehu had not committed the crime of which they were accused, [the Wyoming Game and Fish Department] and those acting in concert with him acted with malice in instituting and continuing the criminal proceedings,” says a portion of the Jan. 21 complaint from the men’s lawyer, Brad Booke of Jackson.
A cover sheet attached to the suit indicates Cumani and Shehi are seeking roughly $2 million in damages. 
In their lawsuit, the two hunters say they “experienced substantial fear of being imprisoned and of having their professional and personal reputations irreparably damaged,” were forced to incur substantial legal costs and take time away from their professional and personal lives to defend themselves and “suffered physical and emotional pain and suffering and experienced substantial loss of enjoyment of their lives.” 
However, through its attorneys, the Wyoming Game and Fish Department is asking for the suit to be dismissed. 
“... Both of Plaintiffs’ claims are barred by the statute of limitations,” Prentice Olive and Timothy Miller of the Wyoming Attorney’s Office wrote in a Thursday memo. They contend the deadline to file suit over alleged malicious prosecution and false imprisonment expired on Sept. 4 — one year after Shehu and Cumani were acquitted. “This action was not filed within the one-year period set forth in [state statute] and, therefore, the action should be dismissed,” Olive and Miller wrote. 
The suit stems from a guided elk hunt that Cumani, Shehu and a third man, George H. Schnell II, took in late October 2019 on Two Dot Ranch property near Heart Mountain. 
Shehu legally harvested two cow elk, but Schnell accidentally shot a bull with his cow tag, leading the group to proactively contact Warden Queen. However, while the warden was responding, he received a report that the group had fired into a herd and wounded two other animals. Queen concluded that Cumani and Shehu had killed or mortally wounded four other elk he found in the area, citing them and their guide, Tyler Viles, for misdemeanor counts of wanton waste. For their part, the three men disputed the allegations and took their case to a jury in September 2020 in Park County Circuit Court. 
Defense attorneys for Shehu, Cumani and Viles presented expert testimony that the bullet found in one of the dead elk did not match the rounds used by Cumani and Shehu. Further, the defense’s expert testified that six of the 17 casings the warden attributed to Cumani and Shehu were the wrong brand. Further, Queen was unable to find a bullet hole in another, scavenged carcass. 
At the conclusion of a four-day trial, the Park County jury ultimately voted unanimously to acquit the three men. 
Defense attorney Joey Darrah, who is now a Circuit Court judge, criticized Queen for not having a ballistics expert check the bullet until well after the hunt and for not interviewing Shehu and Cumani. Darrah said in an interview at the time that the group had spent tens of thousands of dollars fighting the potential $435 tickets because “it was not right.” 
“[The state] should make sure they do a good job if they’re going to put people through this,” said Darrah, who represented Dr. Cumani. “Because if this would have been just some guy that was not a doctor and couldn’t afford this, he just pays the fine and goes on his way, right? Even if he knows he didn’t shoot it. So I’m hoping that somebody learned something here.” 
In an interview after the not guilty verdict, Queen said he knew it was going to be a tough case to prosecute, “but I felt that there was enough evidence to charge those guys.” 
“If I had that same kind of decision to make right now, I would still charge those guys with that crime,” Queen told the Tribune at the time. 
Another hunter in the area testified that the group of hunters had opened fire on the herd for what “seemed like forever” and the manager of the nearby Heart Mountain Ranch Preserve testified that he saw two mortally wounded elk shortly after hearing the gunfire; Queen found those two elk had been shot in the legs. 
For their part, however, Shehu, Cumani and Viles testified that they had looked for injured elk in the area and found none. In their complaint against the Game and Fish Department, Shehu and Cumani say that Queen’s investigation began because of “unverified reports of individuals who lacked personal and accurate knowledge of information they reported.” 
The complaint goes on to allege that Queen failed to develop enough evidence to establish probable cause that Cumani or Shehu had committed a crime, saying the evidence instead showed the hunters had not shot the elk in question. 

“... Warden Queen and others … misrepresented to and/or concealed from prosecutors the true and complete facts that had been discovered and developed during the investigation into the deaths of the elk,” alleges another portion of the hunters’ complaint. 
Because the Wyoming Game and Fish Department’s attorneys have requested that the case be dismissed, the department has not yet filed a formal answer to Cumani and Shehu’s complaint. The men’s attorney, Booke, will next file a written response to the state’s contention that the suit was filed too late. District Court Judge Bill Simpson has set an April 1 hearing on the motion to dismiss.
 
This story was published on Feb. 22.