Wyoming’s new top federal prosecutor has requested a delay in the case of a Gillette man accused of tampering with diesel emissions devices.
According to the man’s defense attorney, the delay represents a nationwide shift away from federal criminal “delete” prosecutions under the second Trump administration.
Levi Krech is charged with one count of conspiracy to violate the Clean Air Act and one count of tampering with a monitoring device in the United States District Court for Wyoming. Each constitutes a felony. Together, they face up to seven years in prison.
Krech, 31, decided to accept a plea deal in July.
The public cannot access the agreement or the allegations that underpin his case.
He was scheduled to plead guilty on September 11.
However, U.S. Attorney for Wyoming Darin Smith, through Assistant U.S. Attorney Kerry Jacobson, requested additional time before the hearing.
“The parties need additional time to research and discuss any proposed changes in the laws and regulations applicable to this case,” Jacobson stated in a motion filed on September 9.
U.S. Magistrate Judge Scott Klosterman granted the motion, rescheduling Krech’s change of plea hearing for October 16.
Krech’s defense attorney, Stewart Cables of Hassan Cables Law Firm, said he hopes the delay means the case will be dismissed entirely.
“Well, we’re hoping he’s not going to have to plead guilty,” Cables told Cowboy State Daily over the phone on Tuesday. “We’re hoping there’s going to be a dismissal.”
He stated that other cases across the country are moving in the same direction: they are in negotiations with the possibility of dismissal.
“The new U.S. Attorney is taking a look at (Krech’s) case,” he said.
Smith’s office did not respond to a request for comment by publication time.
‘The Kid’
Krech’s story unfolded differently than that of others involved in high-profile emissions cases, as well as that of his fellow Wyomingite Troy Lake, who was sentenced to prison at the age of 64 for being a go-to delete man in northern Colorado.
Krech has previously been involved in the criminal justice system, having stolen tires and parts from Gillette diesel shops when he was 17 and 18.
In a Monday interview, Krech said, “I got involved with the wrong people who were street racing, stealing stuff.”
He was involved in the theft conspiracy during his late teens and was officially charged in February 2013, when he was 18.
Campbell County District Court Judge Thomas Rumpke thought it was unfortunate. “The kid” was too smart for such a situation.
“I do remember him,” Rumpke, who now works as an attorney rather than a judge, told Cowboy State Daily on Tuesday. “He’s very smart. (And I remember) saying something like, “Stop using your intelligence for criminal purposes and go out and do something else.”
Rumpke sentenced Krech to four to nine years in prison, with a recommendation for the Wyoming Youthful Offender, or “Boot Camp” program.
Younger defendants have a maximum of one year to complete the program, and they frequently return to their sentencing judge afterward to request a sentencing reduction.
Krech followed suit on August 14, 2014. He finished boot camp well before his deadline.
Rumpke reduced Krech’s sentence and placed him on six years probation, with the possibility of returning to prison if he failed.
Rumpke made the probation period rigorous.
The judge ordered Krech to attend college, complete an intensive supervised probation program, avoid alcohol and bars, stay out of trouble, avoid his co-defendants and shop owners from whom he had stolen parts, and finish paying restitution.
According to court documents, Krech paid $36,340 in restitution.
The victim in this case could not be reached for comment by publication time.
Krech wore an ankle monitor for one year.
One year after being sentenced to probation, Krech opened his own diesel shop in Gillette called Unique Performance.
On January 1, 2017, Krech completed the diesel technology program at Gillette Community College.
“The judge loved that,” Krech recalled.
The System Sometimes Works
Parts company Freedom Racing Engines featured Krech’s “student build” when he was 21. Krech’s projects have since been featured in MotorTrend and Diesel Army.
He recently relocated Unique Performance to Sturgis, where the motorhead culture suits him well, he explained in an earlier interview.
Rumpke declined to comment on the current controversy over diesel emissions or Krech’s federal case.
But, referring to Krech’s rise to success following his time in Rumpke’s court, the former judge said, “I’m very, very proud of him. It demonstrates that the system can work in some cases, and he is a shining example of this.
The Argument
According to Cables, the federal Clean Air Act does not authorize the EPA to pursue criminal prosecutions for tampering with a mobile machine’s on-board diagnostics system.
Federal courts disagreed and upheld the EPA’s use of federal law.
In his July 2024 order in the Tracy Coiteux case, U.S. District Court Judge Benjamin Settle disagreed with Cables’ position.
“The (Clean Air Act’s) criminal sanctions facially apply to any person who tampers with any monitoring device required under the entire CAA — including any monitoring device required under (it),” said the judge in his ruling. “The EPA has discretion to engage in a civil enforcement, criminal enforcement, or both for the challenged conduct under the CAA.”
In his interview, Cables stated that prosecutions frequently target small business owners who lack the time and resources to take a case to trial, let alone the lengthy appeals process.
In one case, which settled for a misdemeanor rather than a felony, the outcome was satisfactory. If a man is allowed to walk away with a misdemeanor, he is less likely to challenge how a federal agency applies the law, according to Cables.
The attorney declined to discuss the specifics of Krech’s case. He mentioned others, including one client who deleted his emissions systems when they failed because he couldn’t afford to replace them.
Krech stated that when he first started in the tuning business, it was considered “perfectly legal in Wyoming,” but then federal oversight arrived, “and everything turned into a mess.”
He’s been working with the federal government on his case for three and a half years, he claims.
Scaling Back In These Ways
On February 5, U.S. Attorney General Pam Bondi issued a notice to all Department of Justice employees, warning them against pursuing criminal charges that are not “appropriate.”
In July, the EPA announced plans to relax regulations on tailpipe emissions.
And on Tuesday, the U.S. House Committee on Oversight and Government Reform debated the same issue: whether the federal government should criminalize diesel delete “tunes” or take a softer approach.
“Today’s hearing focuses on one specific issue,” said Rep. Clay Higgins, R-Louisiana, “the overly aggressive enforcement tactics, many of which are better suited for hardened criminal enforcement, used by the Biden administration to intimidate hardworking small business owners and set an example through regulatory terror against everyday American entrepreneurs.”
The majority of tampering cases were charged during the Biden administration, according to Cables, who represents a number of diesel shop owners.
The Clean Air Act gives the EPA criminal enforcement authority, “like it or not,” Higgins stated during the meeting. “What is in question is whether the agency (has)… fairly and consistently applied its use of criminal authority.”
But This Awful Asthma
U.S. Rep. Summer Lee, D-Pennsylvania, countered in her opening remarks, saying deletes are prohibited because “they cause real harm,” and that the Trump administration has prevented the EPA from enforcing laws to protect children from asthma symptoms and people from a variety of serious conditions.
“Families living next to refineries and highways are being told their health doesn’t matter,” Lee complained. “The only persecution we should be talking about is what black and brown and poor families have endured for generations: families forced to raise their kids in the shadows of smokestacks.”
Eric Schaeffer of the Environmental Integrity Project confirmed this later during a conversation with Lee. He stated that poorer families and people of color frequently end up living near highways or pollution-producing plants, where environmental justice and the need to enforce laws governing it are more than a cliché.
Lee went on to call the hearing absurd, claiming that Trump’s administration is “the most lawless in modern history.”
She stated that deleted trucks emit millions of pounds of pollutants into the atmosphere.
Schaeffer agreed, citing nitrogen oxide, a fuel for smog formation, and diesel particulates, which have been linked to cancer and heart disease.
‘With Guns Drawn’
For years, the federal government treated tampering with emissions devices on mobile sources, such as trucks, as a civil offense rather than a crime.
Around 2020, this changed.
The United States Environmental Protection Agency issued a notice in December 2020 stating that tampering with vehicle emissions systems, including the on-board diagnostic system, is a crime under the Clean Air Act.
Cables believes that EPA officials began using criminal laws against diesel shops and their owners “in anticipation of (President Joe) Biden’s inauguration,” he stated.
The first Trump administration’s EPA also carried out search warrants and raids on shop owners.
According to a judge’s order in Long’s case, on July 22, 2020, at 6 a.m., several agents secured the perimeter of Virginia shop owner Jonathan Long, who was suspected of helping customers “tune” their diesel trucks.
Agents from the EPA’s Criminal Investigation Division and the Naval Criminal Investigative Service met. Two special agents approached the front door with guns drawn, ordering Long and his wife out and instructing him to place his hands on his head.
Long has complied, according to the order.
The agents holstered their weapons, patted down both husband and wife, and confiscated their cellphones before conducting a protective sweep and interviewing Long.
Because Long was not given his Miranda rights prior to an interview in which he was clearly unable to leave, the judge removed evidence from that interview from the case.
Long pleaded guilty to a misdemeanor, a significant reduction from the six felonies he faced when indicted.
