MEDIA RELEASE: Cody Roberts Dodges Prison for Sadistic Wolf Torture – IDA – In Defense of Animals

PINEDALE, Wyo. (April 8, 2026) — In Defense of Animals is utterly disgusted by reports about today’s sentencing of Cody Roberts, the Wyoming man who notoriously tortured a juvenile wolf in February 2024. Despite pleading guilty to felony animal cruelty, Roberts was sentenced today by Judge Richard Lavery to zero days in prison, receiving only 18 months of supervised probation and a paltry $1,425 fine.
Under the terms of the sentencing, Roberts faces an 18-to-24-month prison term and an additional $4,000 fine only if he fails to meet the conditions of his probation. For the next 18 months, he is prohibited from hunting, shed hunting, fishing, consuming alcohol, and entering bars or liquor stores. He was also ordered to undergo counseling and pay minor court fees. As a convicted felon, he loses his firearm and voting rights.
Roberts’s horrific actions shocked the globe and sparked international outrage. He chased down a wolf with a snowmobile, now positively identified as a young male rather than a female as stated in earlier reports. Instead of ending his suffering, Roberts taped his muzzle shut and dragged him into the Green River Bar in Daniel, Wyoming. According to the facts presented in court, the severely injured animal limped into the bar, lay against a wall near a coat rack, and was forced to endure Roberts trying to kiss him for a photo op before he carried him out “like a baby” and shot him.
“Today, the Wyoming justice system confirmed that maliciously torturing a wild animal for hours is treated as a minor inconvenience,” said Doll Stanley, Justice for Animals Senior Campaigner for In Defense of Animals. “Cody Roberts committed one of the most sadistic, arrogant acts of wild animal torture in recent memory. For the judge to let him walk out of the courtroom today with probation and a $1,425 fine is a catastrophic failure of justice and a green light to animal abusers everywhere.”
During the hearing, Sublette County Attorney Clayton Melinkovich stated that the state was “not dissatisfied” with the agreement. Shockingly, the prosecutor then quoted a legal precedent suggesting sentencing judges must isolate themselves from “the sob-sister type who pressures for leniency… and the vengeful, blood-at-any-cost type who pressures for hanging.”
“The prosecutor’s dismissal of the millions of people sickened by this crime as ‘vengeful’ is a masterclass in tone-deafness,” Stanley added. “Demanding prison time for a man who ran over a wild animal with a snowmobile, taped his mouth shut, and paraded him through a bar to be mocked as he died is not bloodlust — it is the bare minimum expectation of a civilized society.”
Furthermore, Judge Lavery remarked from the bench that capturing the wolf wasn’t the problem, but rather that “keeping that animal… under the conditions [he] was kept, was cruel.”
In Defense of Animals fiercely rejects this premise. The initial capture — running down a wild predator to the point of exhaustion and injury with a motorized vehicle, a practice known as “wolf whacking” — is inherently abusive.
Over 10,000 In Defense of Animals members contacted Wyoming officials, urging them to charge Roberts with felony animal cruelty and demanding stronger legal protections to reverse years of predator hatred and cruel hunting methods, including:
A total ban on “wolf whacking”: The cruel practice of using motorized vehicles, like snowmobiles, to chase and crush wildlife must be outlawed.
The abolition of the “predator zone”: Over 80% of Wyoming currently allows wolves to be killed year-round without a license.

A ban on cruel hunting methods: The use of dogs and wire snares to hunt and kill wildlife must end.

Accountability for complicit parties: Businesses — like the Green River Bar — and individuals who facilitate or harbor animal torture must face legal repercussions.
Over 9,000 people called for stronger protections for wolves and urged legislators to resist H.R. 845, a bill that recently passed the U.S. House, which would strip wolves of Endangered Species Act protections. This dangerous and short-sighted legislation threatens not only to hamstring biodiversity recovery but also to remove vital depredation resources for ranchers. 
“This shameful sentence shows exactly why legislators must urgently fund wildlife coexistence programs instead of stripping Endangered Species Act protections from wolves, which enables the archaic culture of ‘predator whacking’ that leads to horrific situations like this,” said Lisa Levinson, Campaigns Director for In Defense of Animals. “We are counting on senators to reject H.R. 845.”
Members of the public are urged to sign this alert to contact their senators to stop this dangerous and regressive bill.

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Contact: Doll Stanley, doll@idausa.org, ‪(662) 809-4483

In Defense of Animals is an international animal protection organization based in Marin County, California, with over 250,000 supporters and a history of fighting for animals, people, and the environment through education and campaigns, as well as hands-on rescue facilities in India, South Korea, Mississippi, and Central California, since 1983. https://idausa.org/wildanimals
 
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