Office remains qualified for trial

A woman accused of 27 felony forgery-related crimes, asked the court to disqualify the entire Sweetwater County Attorney’s Office from the case.

Tina Linkenauger, filed the motion to disqualify the Sweetwater County Attorney’s Office from her case in the Third District Court of Judge Nena James.

Linkenauger is charged with six counts of possession of forged writings, 16 counts of forgery, one count of unauthorized use of personal identifying information and four counts of false written statements to obtain property or credit. All of these charges stem from work Linkenauger did at the Sweetwater County Community Health Center, where she acted as its chief executive officer and its founder.

A hearing on the motion to disqualify took place May 11; and after hearing from both sides, Judge James denied the motion. Teresa Thybo will remain on the case and the trial has been reset to Aug. 3. Sweetwater County Attorney Daniel Erramouspe will continue to be screened from the case.

According to the motion to disqualify, at some point when Linkenauger was executive director of SCCHC, Dan Erramouspe was retained to be the SCCHC’s attorney.

After she was charged in April of 2014, the SCCHC Board met with Erramouspe to discuss the facts and allegations behind those charges. At the meeting, Erramouspe advised the board on how to move forward with obtaining the necessary funding from the USDA.

Linkenauger retained Tom Fleener as her attorney and early on in his representation he spoke with Sweetwater County Attorney Brett Johnson, who was the county attorney at the time. Johnson informed Fleener that both he and deputy county attorney Teresa Thybo had communicated with Erramouspe about the case.

In November of 2014, Erramouspe was elected as the new Sweetwater County Attorney.

On Nov. 22, 2014, Linkenauger was charged with an additional 18 counts.

When Erramouspe took over in January of 2015, Fleener contacted him to discuss Linkenauger’s case, but it was at this point that Erramouspe stated his conflict with the case and would be blocking himself off the case and that Thybo would solely handle the matter.

“There is little doubt that he cannot participate in the prosecution of Ms. Linkenauger because he participated substantially with issues relating to the investigation while serving as the SCCHC attorney. Mr. Erramouspe correctly recognizes his conflict and stated so in an email. The question remaining is whether rules of imputed disqualification extends to the entire Sweetwater County Attorney’s Office thereby prohibiting the entire office from prosecuting Ms. Linkenauger,” the motion states.

The defense argued that it is not legally possible to screen Erramouspe from case because he is not an associate attorney, but the county attorney.

The defense stated the duties of a county attorney according to Wyoming State Statute 18-3-302, which states “Each county attorney shall (i) act in all court in the state as legal counsel for his county or counties and its officers acting in their official capacity or prosecute or defend all suits instituted by or against the county or counties or its officers.”

Linkenauger claims that Erramouspe is personally responsible for all prosecutions in Sweetwater County; and therefore he cannot be screened off of the case. Erramouspe, not Thybo, was elected as the county attorney.

“If Mr. Erramouspe was screened off the case, there would be no elected official to address the public in this matter -- demonstrating that the public trust and confidence in the judicial system could not be maintained,” the motion states.

The defense asked the court to disqualify Erramouspe and the entire Sweetwater County Attorney’s Office from the case.

The court on agreed to continue to disqualify Erramouspe from the case, not the entire office.