Wyoming this month paid to settle a lawsuit brought by a hemp farmer whose crop was seized by law enforcement agents based on erroneous allegations she grew and trafficked marijuana, court filings show.
The state paid farmer Debra Palm-Egle $150,000 to settle the case, she told WyoFile on Monday, out of which she had to pay fees to her civil attorney. A lawyer for the Wyoming Attorney General’s office confirmed the amount.
Minus attorney fees, the remaining settlement payment was not substantially more than the $54,000 she spent on criminal defense attorneys in 2019 and 2020, she said. Felony charges brought by the state at that time threatened to send the senior citizen to prison for decades.
“It needed to be done,” Palm-Egle said of her lawsuit, and she hopes the settlement will make investigators and prosecutors proceed with more caution on such clearly flawed cases in the future.
“Maybe it will help them stop and think,” she said.
Barring any new twists, the settlement ends a long-running court saga that began with a 2019 raid and property seizure and played out across state and federal courts. The Wyoming Supreme Court weighed in on two separate legal questions stemming from the case.
Wyoming Division of Criminal Investigation agents clad in tactical gear and brandishing assault rifles raided Palm-Egle’s family farm in Albin, near the Nebraska border, in November 2019. Investigators had received a tip from a neighboring farmer that Palm-Egle was growing marijuana, and DCI agents who visited the farm claimed to spot what they believed to be that illegal plant hanging in a barn.
During the raid, investigators confiscated 700 pounds of the plant — a big bust, had it in fact been marijuana. But over a five-month investigation, DCI’s testing of the crop ultimately revealed it had a THC level in line with hemp production. They charged Palm-Egle, her son and two employees of the farmers with conspiracy to manufacture, deliver or possess marijuana; possession with intent to deliver marijuana; possession of marijuana and planting or cultivating marijuana. All but the last are felonies.
But the crop could never have been effectively sold as a narcotic, the farmers argued in court, as its THC concentration was far too low to have any of the psychotropic effects of marijuana, which is in various respects legal in most states but not in Wyoming. Palm-Egle’s defense team also pointed out that she was a well known lobbyist for hemp farming in Wyoming, who had worked with lawmakers to legalize the crop and posed with Gov. Mark Gordon at a bill signing.
DCI agents never interviewed Palm-Egle or her son during the investigation. After the raid a judge barred Palm-Egle from leaving Laramie County, even though her principal residence is in Colorado. She wound up living on the farm for nine months. Palm-Egle, who has multiple sclerosis, said the judge’s order interfered with therapies that help her avoid vertigo and other side effects of the disease.
“It was very traumatizing,” she said, “plus the threat of going to prison for 30 years. You can’t feel comfortable. You can’t feel safe.”
But once the case reached a trial court, the prosecution didn’t get far. A Laramie County judge tossed the case following a preliminary hearing, finding the prosecution could never prove the farmers intended to grow marijuana, not hemp.
Legal fallout rippled out from there.
In 2021, the Wyoming Supreme Court went on to censure the prosecutor, David Singleton, then a Laramie County senior assistant district attorney, after the Wyoming State Bar investigated an allegation that DCI agent Jon Briggs had lied on the stand and Singleton had allowed him to do so. Singleton paid an $800 fine and admitted he had violated the Wyoming judiciary’s rules of professional conduct by failing to correct testimony from Briggs he knew was false.
The Wyoming Attorney General’s office sought to protect Briggs, asking the state Supreme Court to redact his name from their decision on Singleton. The justices rejected that request. Briggs was subsequently investigated by the Wyoming Peace Officer Standards and Training Commission, which cleared him of any wrongdoing. He remains an investigator with DCI, an agency spokesperson said late last year.
Singleton, the former prosecutor, is today a Cheyenne Municipal Court judge. The city council appointed him to the court the same year as the censure.
Palm-Egle filed her federal civil suit in May 2022. A federal judge found that the law was unclear on whether Wyoming residents could sue law enforcement for damages caused by negligent criminal investigations, and asked the Wyoming Supreme Court to weigh in. In a 3-2 March decision, the state’s high court ruled Palm-Egle’s case could advance, and the matter returned to federal court.
A DCI spokesperson on Monday told WyoFile the agency would not comment on the settlement in the case, which named Briggs as a defendant. Attorneys on the case for the Wyoming AG’s office did not respond to a request for comment by WyoFile’s deadline.
After paying her attorneys, Palm-Egle plans to spend the money she won remodeling her barn, she said — a project she had been saving money for and had to pause in order to pay for her legal defense.
“It’s going to look gorgeous,” she said.
“Thank God, it’s over,” she said of her legal battles. “This has been a long fight, and I’m grateful that I’m finished with this and I hope that no one else goes through this in the state.”
The settlement was finalized and the case concluded at the tail end of the Wyoming Legislature’s 2025 general session. Ahead of that session, the Joint Judiciary Committee — the group of lawmakers that focus on the state’s criminal justice and civil courts — had sponsored a bill that would have closed the door on future lawsuits like Palm-Egle’s, which accused DCI agents of conducting a “negligent” investigation.
After the Wyoming Supreme Court’s ruling on Palm-Egle’s case, the Judiciary Committee this fall drafted a bill that would have immunized investigators from such lawsuits going forward, though it would not have stopped Palm-Egle’s. But the composition of the judiciary committee changed in January, and the new committee declined to advance the bill. Several lawmakers told WyoFile they thought the legislation would have tipped the statute too sharply in favor of law enforcement.
It remains unclear whether lawmakers will bring a version of that legislation back.
Palm-Egle said her son, Josh Egle, has continued to grow hemp in Albin. He has been using the crop to produce herbal medicines to help people sleep, she said.
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