One Million, Cash Only

We had people in the room.

After a month of watching this case through a Colorado livestream and a volunteer's text messages from a San Francisco hallway, the proceedings came home. This morning they happened in Douglas, in a courtroom anyone could walk into, and several people did.

What follows comes from witnesses who were in that gallery taking notes in real time. I've kept them anonymous. This is their account, cross-checked between them where they overlapped, and it is not a transcript — where I give you the judge's or the prosecutor's words, understand they're a witness's best record of what was said, not a certified record.

I'll correct anything the docket contradicts.

The route back is no longer a mystery.

He was flown in to Casper on the night of the 19th — Oil City News actually printed his book in there. He was in Converse County being booked in the Douglas jail by 9:20am yesterday morning.

By 9:30 this morning the judge was on the bench.

This is the detail that shaped the entire hearing.

Nathan Shumway appeared for the State of Wyoming. No one appeared for John Smallbone.

He confirmed to the court that he understood his rights. Then he stood through his own arraignment, on a misdemeanor and on a felony case carrying decades, without counsel at the table.

That isn't an accident. His public defender asked off this case on July 28 and gave no reasons. Separately, the public defender's office had moved to revisit whether he qualified for appointed counsel at all — after a man who swore he couldn't borrow money for a lawyer produced $250,000 in cash and was found not to have disclosed a business and two boats.

On the misdemeanor credit card fraud charge, he requested an attorney. The judge said he would go ahead and appoint one — but told Smallbone he still has to fill out the packet.

That case was set for review September 9 at 11:00 AM, with a $1,000 cash bond.

Then the felony case.

As recorded by witnesses, the felony charges include 14 counts of voyeurism, 67 counts of exploitation of a minor, and one count of felony possession of marijuana.

The original case has been dropped and refiled. This is the rebuilt case — a different document than the one he skipped on July 28.

Shumway walked the judge through the arithmetic in open court and confirmed those totals.

On penalties, witnesses recorded Shumway walking the court through maximums — one group at 12 years with a mandatory minimum of five, others topping out at 10, others at five. Note that there was some discussion and maybe a bit of confusion at one point about the counts, and so if I am printing anything here that is incorrect I will correct it when the charging documents come out.

A preliminary hearing was set for August 25 at 4:00 PM. I'm told that date is being adjusted, so check back. AUGUST 24th at 3:30

Shumway laid out the history for the court — the flight, the failures to appear, everything that has happened since June.

Then he asked for $1,000,000, cash only.

The judge asked John Smallbone whether he wanted to make an argument on bond.

He said no.

One witness recorded that his voice cracked at that moment — that it was the only point in the hearing where he showed anything at all. The same witness described him otherwise as careless about answering and close to expressionless. Another described him scanning the faces in the room.

Those are impressions from the gallery. Take them as such.

According to witnesses, the judge made a point of addressing him directly before ruling — the substance being that the court had given him a chance to do the right thing, that he had failed, and that this was why what was about to happen was happening.

And this, recorded by a witness as close to verbatim as she could get it:

"The only question in my mind is if $1,000,000 is enough."

He set bond at $1,000,000.

Then he wrote in the conditions that would apply if Smallbone somehow makes it.

No contact with the families or the victims, or with anyone under the age of 18.

Stay sober — the judge told him directly that with the charges he's facing, that's required.

Daily in-person reporting to the Converse County Sheriff's Office, to prove he is physically in this county.

The judge asked him whether he'd prefer to report mornings or evenings. Smallbone said evenings. The judge proposed between 8 and 10 PM.

"That works, your honor."

Near the end, the judge asked him a direct question about the no-contact condition:

"Is there anyone under the age of 18 that you need to be in contact with?"

"No, your honor."

John Smallbone is a father. The witnesses in that room reacted to that answer, and I'll let you sit with it rather than tell you what to think.

Here is what did not happen this morning.

According to my witnesses, the previous bond came up only in passing — the point being made that a quarter of a million dollars had not been enough to get him to court.

There was no discussion of anyone getting any of it back. No motion, no argument, no mention of remission.

That question is still open. Under Wyoming Rule of Criminal Procedure 46, a court declares forfeiture when a bond condition is breached, but a forfeiture can be set aside and a judgment can be remitted in whole or in part — all of it discretionary, none of it automatic. Wyoming statute directs that recovered forfeiture proceeds go to the county treasury, credited to the public school fund of the county where bail was granted.

Nobody raised any of that today. I'll be watching the docket for whoever does.

Roughly fifteen people sat on one side of that courtroom. Two reporters sat in the back on the other side.

An older woman witnesses believed to be Smallbone's mother sat in the front row. Witnesses observed him looking over at her repeatedly during the proceeding and smiling. After the bond was set, one witness described both of them smirking.

She was later seen going back out to her car and then toward the visitation side of the building where money can be added to an inmate’s books. What she was doing there, I don't know, and I'm not going to invent it.

Among the people in that gallery was the mother of one of the victims in this case.

I'm not naming her, and I want to explain why plainly: in a county this size, naming the mother of a child victim names the child. That isn't a decision I'm willing to make on anyone else's behalf.

She gave me this, and asked that it be shared:

"A million ain't enough for a bond after all he did to our kids and running. He shouldn't even have a bond. The way he was smirking boiled my blood."

That's a parent who sat in a room this morning with the man charged with hurting her child, watched him decline to say a word in his own defense, and watched him smile at his mother.

She stayed in her seat. She waited until the room cleared.

I've written a lot of words about documents in this case — registry entries, meeting minutes, court judgments from Florida, booking records from three states. The documents matter. They're the reason any of this holds up.

But this mother and her child, and the other parents and their children who have been hurt is what this has all been about.

August 25, 4:00 PM AUGUST 24th at 3:30 — preliminary hearing on the felony case. That date is being adjusted; I'll publish the change when it posts.

September 9, 11:00 AM — case review on the misdemeanor.

Both in Douglas. Both in a room you can walk into. So can that mother.

Smallbone is presumed innocent of all charges. This account is drawn from multiple witnesses present in the gallery and is not a court transcript; quotations reflect witnesses' contemporaneous notes. Corrections will be published at the top of this piece as the official record becomes available.