Embattled Weston County Clerk Becky Hadlock could face new felony-level charges and an arrest, her attorney disclosed in a Thursday court filing.
The new charges relate to Hadlock’s conduct “before, during, or after the 2024 general election in Weston County, including allegations related to her conduct during a post-election audit on November 6, 2024,” according to a new pretrial memorandum filed by her attorney, Ryan Semerad.
Hadlock faces an April 13 trial to decide whether she should be removed from office for acts of “misconduct and malfeasance,” including allegations she filed a false audit report after the 2024 general election and defied a legislative subpoena. The allegations grew out of concerns over her handling of an error that led to a dramatic miscount in the vote for Speaker of the House Chip Neiman, who was running unopposed.
Hadlock already faces a separate misdemeanor criminal case in Natrona County over the legislative subpoena, which required her to testify before a legislative panel that met in Casper to examine her actions surrounding the election.
That case is being pursued by the Natrona County District Attorney’s Office. The same office, acting as a special prosecutor for Weston County, now plans to file several new, and more serious, criminal charges against Hadlock, according to Semerad’s pretrial memo.
The district attorney’s office informed Hadlock’s defense attorney that it intends to file the charges sometime next week, while also seeking an arrest warrant for the clerk, the pretrial memo states. If that warrant is granted, authorities will attempt to arrest Hadlock in Weston County sometime next week.
Natrona County District Attorney Dan Itzen said he could not comment at this time.
Semerad also declined to comment.
“We think the pleadings speak for themselves at this point, and we are not going to comment further,” he told WyoFile.
If Hadlock is arrested, she could be in jail when her removal trial begins, Semerad notes. He argued his client would “suffer material prejudice and hardship that prevents her from defending herself in these proceedings at trial,” including possibly not being able to appear in court.
New criminal charges the week before the removal trial would expose Hadlock to possible notoriety and publicity that “may prevent the selection of a fair and impartial jury,” Semerad wrote.
Election night undercount
As clerk, Hadlock oversees elections in Weston County. On the night of the 2024 general election, initial results indicated that voters overwhelmingly chose not to cast a ballot for Neiman — known as an undercount — despite the fact he was running unopposed.
That undercount resulted from an initial miscount caused by Hadlock’s use of the wrong ballots. Secretary of State Chuck Gray intervened, and a hand count ultimately produced the correct results.
But Hadlock faced criticism in and outside of Weston County for her actions during and after the election — including the post-election audit that she filed. Gov. Mark Gordon, in later recommending Hadlock’s removal, said she “failed to discover twenty-one incorrect ballot entries,” which “could likely be construed as misconduct or malfeasance.”
Lawmakers also examined Hadlock’s actions. They subpoenaed her to appear before a subcommittee investigating the matter on Sept. 29 in Casper. She did not attend.
Hadlock said she informed the Legislative Service Office — the staffers for state lawmakers — that she could not attend due to a scheduling conflict. She was subpoenaed anyway on Sept. 23, but did not attend the hearing or make a legal effort to void the subpoena.
Prosecutors charged her with failing to appear at the hearing, which could result in a maximum jail sentence of six months or a $100 fine. She has pleaded not guilty, and a trial in that matter is set for next month in Capser.
Semerad’s new filing doesn’t indicate what specific new charges his client may face. But if they are felonies, they would by their nature carry the prospect of stiffer penalties.
Witnesses and subpoenas
The pretrial memorandum also offers a list of possible witnesses that Hadlock could call to testify. They include Gray, who is responsible for overseeing Wyoming elections, along with two lawmakers on the panel that investigated Hadlock: Rep. Rachel Rodriguez-Williams, who is now running to succeed Gray as secretary of state, and Rep. Christopher Knapp.
But on Thursday, the Wyoming Attorney General’s office filed a motion to prevent Rodriguez-Williams and Knapp, both Republicans and members of the Wyoming Freedom Caucus, from being subpoenaed to testify. The attorney general’s office maintains legislative privilege bars them from being compelled to testify regarding their legislative activities.
“There is no legal authority or argument that would permit Clerk Hadlock to go fishing for evidence of legislative improprieties by putting legislators on the stand,” Deputy Attorney General Mark Klaassen wrote. “Under any of the applicable legal standards, issuing the legislative subpoena was legislative activity, and all information relating to it that would reveal the non-public actions, communications, mental impressions, or motives of legislators is subject to an absolute legislative privilege.”
Of course they are going to fight having the Chemtrail Caucus testify under oath. It might expose their real motives and who is behind them pulling the strings.
A Legit Question: WHY did she undercount an Election that had an Unopposed Candidate? Article does not make this known/clear. Thank you.
It started with mis-printed ballots. I believe there were two sets of mis-printed ballots, and they were stored in a designated locked closet. When the correctly printed ballots arrived, they were stored in the same locked closet. Hadlock’s mistake was not making sure that only the correct ballots were sent out. Because the candidates were not physically positioned correctly on all the ballots, the machine count was incorrect. Chuck Gray started getting phone calls right away on election night with the FC crowd wanting to know why Neiman wasn’t getting any votes. Gray tried to call the Hadlock, but she was not answering. At one point he sent the sheriff to her house. The next day, as per the written procedure, Hadlock performed the risk limiting audit, in which a sampling of the ballots, designated by the Sec of State’s office, are pulled and compared to the scanned ballot images. (Evidently the ballots are marked when they are fed into the machines so they can be individually identified later but still maintain voter anonymity. I want to know more.) Hadlock reported back to the Sec of State’s office that the RLA found no errors. That is where she got into big trouble. Gray was able to re-run the RLA and found 21 ballots that did not match the machine tally. That means that she either failed to do the RLA, but sent the report anyway, or she did the RLA and falsified the results. Meanwhile, before this came to light, the day after the election, Hadlock agreed to do a hand re-count. The hand re-count revealed that the machine count was incorrect, and the problem of the mis-printed ballots was revealed. My personal opinion is that Hadlock knew before the election that she screwed up by having the ballots printed incorrectly, twice. She knew Neiman was running un-opposed, so she felt harassed by Chuck Gray freaking out on election night. Neiman won his seat, no matter what. I think every election official has the goal of quickly reporting results and not having any issues that would cause voters to be upset. I think she got scared went into cover-up mode.