Former Albany County Attorney Richard Bohling is trying to challenge the Wyoming Attorney General’s Office’s ability to prosecute him.
The Wyoming Attorney General’s Office responded to two motions filed on behalf of Bohling on June 12.
Bohling filed two separate motions in the last month, a motion to dismiss his case, as well as a motion to suppress evidence. He also filed a demand for notice of evidence.
The motion to dismiss was based on his objection to the attorney general’s role as special prosecutor. In the motion to dismiss, Bohling’s lawyers said, “the Attorney General has not documented its authority to act” as a special prosecutor in his case.
In the state’s response to the motion to dismiss, Assistant Attorney General Christyne Martens said Wyoming law does not support the motion.
“The defendant’s request is not supported by law, and, if granted, would represent an inappropriate intrusion into the executive department of the Wyoming state government,” Martens wrote.
The state cited a Wyoming statute that allows for the governor to have the attorney general investigate a crime committed by a county officer if the governor believes the “matter will not be properly investigated and prosecuted by the sheriff and the district attorney of the county.” The statute then allows the attorney general to consult with the governor, and if it is deemed appropriate to pursue charges, the attorney general will have the “authority and duty” of a district attorney.
Bohling pleaded not guilty to six felonies and three misdemeanors in April amid allegations that he unlawfully took several thousand dollars’ worth of electronics while serving as Albany county attorney.
In Bohling’s motion to suppress evidence, he claims the state failed to file a search warrant return within the five days allowed by state law. In the state’s response, Martens said Bohling and his lawyers incorrectly calculated the day the return was due.
“In making his assertions, the defendant incorrectly calculated when the search warrant was due to the court and, even if it was untimely filed, cannot show that he was prejudiced in any way,” Martens wrote.
According to the state’s response, the rule Bohling claims they violated does not include weekends in the five-day figure, and the state filed the return a day earlier than required.
The state also filed a bill of particulars in response to Bohling’s demand for notice of evidence. The bill of particulars lists the charges that Bohling faces, and specifically addresses each one. It then lists all of the items that Bohling is suspect of misusing funds for in a 17-page document that puts the total price of suspect items at $35,243.55.
The response also lists evidence the state has against Bohling, consisting of an 82 page DCI report, 1,218 pages of enclosures to this report and 532 pages of vouchers, invoices and receipts related to the suspect purchases. With the 532 pages of receipts are 681 photos, 54 videos and five audio recordings.
An unopposed motion to continue pretrial and trial requests the court allows the pretrial scheduled for June 29 to continue, but asks that the anticipated seven to eight day trial set to begin August 3 be postponed due to the 12 terabytes of hard drives and the more than 3,000,000 electronic materials the defense will need to review.
