Recently, the Wyoming Supreme Court rejected a motion from the state’s Attorney General’s office. The office asked to remove the name of the investigator from the official record after he lied on the stand during a hemp trial last year. 

Wyoming Division of Criminal Investigation (DCI) Special Agent Jon Briggs was found in contempt of court for lying not once, but twice, while under oath. Recently, the Supreme Court ruled to censure the prosecutor in the case, Attorney Dave Singleton, for not correcting Agent Briggs during or after his testimony against the Egle family. The Egle Family, whose hemp farm was in question, had been charged, along with their contractors Brock and Shannon Dyke, of drug trafficking conspiracies in July of 2020 when DCI raided their hemp farm and confiscated over 700 plants. 

Hemp Case

In November 2019, when DCI raided the Egle Family farm, Brock Dyke, the contractor, presented test results as the 700 plants were confiscated. There had been claims the hemp the family was growing contained more than the legal threshold of THC. 

However, during the raid, Mr. Dyke presented Agent Briggs with test results that showed the Egle’s hemp crops followed the laws of the state. The plants were still confiscated. When a trial began, Agent Briggs testified on the stand he had not seen test results at the farm. However, Mr. Dyke presented the results during the court case. This caused Agent Briggs to change his story, saying he noq couldn’t be sure if those were the results he saw that day or not. This shows that he was shown results during the raid despite saying he hadn’t earlier in the trial. 

Continued Harm

The Egle Family Defense attorney, Tom Jubin, then reached out to the prosecution to have Agent Briggs officially change his statement so that it was correct in stating that he did see the test results. However, the prosecution didn’t change the statement. The next time Agent Briggs took the stand, Attorney Jubin asked if the agent had read the email he had sent.

“To be honest, sir, I didn’t read your email,” Agent Briggs responded. Again, under oath. “I forwarded it to counsel.”

This was later proven incorrect. Both the defense attorney and the Wyoming State Bar presented extensive text messages between Agent Briggs and Attorney Singleton about the email Attorney Jubin had sent in regards to correcting the agent’s response. While on the stand, Agent Briggs said he had not seen the email, then later corrected himself.

“If I skimmed it that would be the extent of it,” Briggs told internal DCI investigators. “I don’t recall getting any jist [sic] of it. I mean I am sure I saw words in it somewhere I didn’t know if that was the header of it was somewhere in the body of it, um yeah I was just so put off and disgusted that they would send me that and I don’t recall.”

Text messages show not only did Briggs actually read the email sent by Defense Attorney Jubin, he was furious at the implications of being corrected. Unfortunately, the text messages themselves are not available to the general public at this time. 

Implications

The Wyoming Attorney General’s Office did pick up the case shortly after it became dismissed in 2020 because of Agent Briggs contempt. Deputy Attorney General Jenny Craig filed a motion with the state’s Supreme Court to conceal the identity of the agent. Attorney Craig claimed that the court lacked the jurisdiction to fully determine if Agent Briggs’ had actually conducted any wrongdoing. She also claimed Agent Briggs had been denied due process. 

Furthermore, DCI conducted an internal investigation into Agent Briggs and this hemp case as a whole. Upon review, the agency recommended Agent Briggs be cleared of all wrongdoing. He had not lied on the stand despite what the evidence said.

However, the Wyoming Supreme Court came back and denied the motion to remove Agent Briggs’ name from the case itself. The Justices said the Attorney General’s office was not a party to the censure. They had no withstanding to involve itself in this case. This brings into question the honesty and integrity of the internal DCI investigation itself. The Wyoming Peace Officer Training and Standards Commission is also investigating Agent Briggs’ testimony.

Results

The Egle Family, and the Dyke contractors, have been pardoned of all charges. They can now get back to doing what they had done best, grow legal and safe hemp for Wyoming citizens. 

Make sure to check back for more cannabis and hemp related news.