SUBLETTE COUNTY – The state’s case against Timberline Lodge owner and outfitter Melanie Peterson continues into the new year with her Jan. 11 one-day trial vacated while defense attorneys challenge a local search warrant.

Wyoming Game and Fish investigators undertook a four-year investigation of alleged hunting violations before coming to the Sublette County Attorney’s Office with information to file 19 misdemeanor charges against Peterson. The charges were amended with four withdrawn, court records show.

Peterson pleaded not guilty in Sublette County Circuit Court before Judge Curt Haws, who signed one of the initial search warrants executed Aug. 7, 2019 at Timberline Lodge. The defense is arguing that the search warrants are “invalid” and “overbroad” and seeks to suppress all evidence extracted from her electronic devices.

The Dec. 6 motion also asks the court to sanction the Sublette County Attorney’s Office for potentially sharing her private data with other defendants related to Peterson’s charges. The protection order placed on Peterson’s confidential personal information could have been violated, it says.

The motion to suppress says the search warrants’ affidavit was not specific enough for time and place for alleged violations and lacked probable cause. It also argues that only one phone was listed, Peterson’s landline at Timberline Lodge, and there is no “factual information that any of the devices were used in the alleged crimes.”

“(The search warrants) have extremely broad and overreaching language without providing any link to those items seized,” the motion says. It also questions whether or not deputy county attorney Clayton Melinkovich released confidential information to others and asks that any sharing of information be audited.

Peterson’s attorney, Joey Darrah, was appointed to a Park County judgeship and replaced by Brigita Krisjansons and Branden Vilos in December.

On Jan. 4, Peterson waived her right to a speedy trial.

Judge Curt Haws assigned the judicial review of the search warrant he signed to Converse County Circuit Court Judge Clark Allen, who set a March 1 hearing. However, Peterson objected to Allen’s review, noting that he served as a Wyoming Game and Fish commissioner and advocated tough penalties for “poaching,” for example.

Melinkovich responded to the motion to suppress on Jan. 4, saying the state “took reasonable steps to prohibit free distribution of Melanie Peterson’s personal and private information.” A sanction was “inappropriate” because his office is bound by state law “to provide discovery to every criminal defendant” and he worked with the defense attorney to limit the volume of data shared in other defendants’ discovery.

Judge Haws ruled recently that he would find a different judge than Allen to review his role in the search warrant; the new judge has not yet been named. In the meantime, the March 1 suppression hearing is continued.