WHEATLAND—Outside the Platte County Courthouse on Wednesday afternoon, the air was cool, the sky clear and the spring lilacs had just begun to bloom. Shortly before 2 p.m., people began gathering in the dim corridor outside the circuit courtroom, which is hidden away in the basement past a metal detector.
A woman and three others filed through and sat at the far end of the hall. The woman wore a ball cap stitched with an American flag and a buffalo, a gray and brown cardigan, jeans and sneakers. Her long, brown hair was neatly braided.
A reporter, not initially recognizing the woman as April Morganroth, known in Wyoming by her alias Marie Hamilton, leaned over to ask the group if they were there for the Morganroth hearing. For a moment, the four of them looked at the reporter in silence. Then Morganroth leaned over.
“We’re not gonna talk to you,” she said.
“Are you Marie?” the reporter asked.
“We’re not gonna talk to you,” Morganroth repeated.
The corridor fell silent. The previous hearing was running late. At one point, Morganroth stood and went into the courtroom. She brought out her lawyer and beckoned to one of her companions — a man who appeared to be her husband — with a hooked finger. The couple and their attorney walked out through the metal detector and returned some minutes later.
When the courtroom door opened, the man and Morganroth’s two other companions sat together in the back row. The man held his blaze orange beanie and a bottle in his hands. At times, he didn’t watch the proceedings, but looked down in front of him, seeming lost in thought.
Judge Jacqueline K. Brown entered the room. Everyone rose. At 2:13 p.m., the hearing began.
Morganroth faces 10 felony charges accusing her of forging documents to show she had been pre-approved for a loan and received a grant from the U.S. Department of Agriculture for a Chugwater home she apparently sought to purchase. Court documents state that the homeowners had agreed to take the property off the market and rent it to Morganroth and her husband while the couple made property improvements to qualify for the USDA loan.
These charges are just the beginning of a litany of other troubles for Morganroth, who was free on bond at Wednesday’s hearing. Separate complaints initiating an eviction of the Morganroths from the Chugwater property allege the couple also failed to pay rent. According to the complaints, eviction notices were served to the Morganroths and posted on the home’s door, but the couple “refused to leave.” A judge ordered the Platte County Sheriff’s Office to forcibly remove them if they didn’t leave the property by March 28. An update on that case was not immediately available Wednesday.
The former Wyoming journalist also faces 10 other charges in a separate case for allegedly forging documents to oppose a proposed wind farm in the Chugwater area and lying under oath at a hearing concerning the project.
Morganroth has worked as a reporter for the Platte County Record-Times, the Guernsey Gazette, the Torrington Telegram and the Newcastle News Letter Journal. She also freelanced briefly for Oil City News and Cap City News and was the owner, publisher and managing editor of 307 Wyoming Sentinel. Morganroth was an outspoken figure after News Media Corporation announced last year that it was closing eight Wyoming newspapers, including the one in Platte County that employed her at the time. (The papers were quickly purchased and reopened.)
Before moving to Wyoming, Morganroth worked for newspapers in Nebraska and Colorado, including one that fired her for making up quotes and misrepresenting the stories of people she had talked to about the Sept. 11 terrorist attacks, The Denver Post reported. Before that, she had faced legal trouble in Arizona, according to The Denver Post.
An audience of 11 people, including reporters, legal personnel and law enforcement officers, watched the proceedings. Brown, the judge, set a $20,000 personal recognizance bond for Morganroth, meaning that she doesn’t have to spend time in jail but must promise to appear in court. Doug Weaver, the Platte County attorney, noted that Morganroth hasn’t previously failed to appear in court.
Brown also barred Morganroth from contacting any witnesses in the matter.
She is due back in court next month for an arraignment in the wind farm case.
