CHEYENNE, Wyo.—Federal authorities charge that a Wyoming Highway Patrol trooper arrested in March had planned to murder a Wal-Mart truck driver and then stage an accident with his patrol car to collect damages from the company.
Trooper Franklin Ryle pleaded not guilty to three charges in federal court at his arraignment before a U.S. Magistrate William C. Beaman in Cheyenne on Tuesday.
An indictment returned last week and unsealed Tuesday charges Ryle with violating the rights of a truck driver by kidnapping him in January.
Other charges allege that Ryle, 41, of Douglas, was armed during the kidnapping and that he tried to convince another trooper to help him. Ryle remains in custody.
Assistant federal public defender David Weiss represented Ryle at the arraignment and declined comment afterward.
FBI Spec. Agent Richard P. Fanelli of Cheyenne swore out an affidavit to support the charges against Ryle in March. The affidavit was sealed then at the request of the U.S. Department of Justice.
Edward Caspar, trial attorney with the Justice Department, appeared at the arraignment through a video link from Virginia. He hold Beaman that the affidavit no longer needed to be sealed and the judge ordered it released.
According to the affidavit, Ryle stopped a Wal-Mart truck the evening of Jan. 8, near Douglas.
The affidavit states that Ryle handcuffed the driver and told him that he was under arrest on a Colorado warrant charging failure to appear.
The truck driver later told investigators that Ryle drove him into Douglas, parked the patrol car outside a house and left him locked in the back of the car. Ryle then drove the truck driver back to his truck and released him.
The affidavit states that Ryle apparently released the truck driver after realizing that the Wal-Mart truck was equipped with a GPS system that would record that it had been stationary while he had the driver in custody. That would complicate any later claim by Ryle that the truck had driven into his patrol car.
The Highway Patrol initiated an investigation on Jan. 14 after Ryle’s wife, Andrea Ryle, told her brother, a member of the Casper Police Department, that Trooper Ryle had planned to stage an accident between his patrol car and a Wal-Mart truck.
The truck driver independently came into the Highway Patrol office in Cheyenne on Jan. 15 and reported that Ryle had pulled him over and detained him. The driver said he was concerned that he could get in trouble with his employers for leaving the truck unlocked and running while he was in custody.
Investigators from the state Division of Criminal Investigation interviewed Ryle about the incident. The affidavit states that Ryle told them that he had driven to his home with the truck driver in his patrol car because he had a sick child.
Ryle said he released the truck driver after checking with dispatchers a second time about whether the driver had any outstanding warrants and learned that there were none.
However the affidavit states that investigators checked national computer records and found that there had never been an initial report of a warrant against the driver that evening to justify his arrest.
The affidavit states that Trooper Devan Jarred Henderson, assigned to Casper, told a DCI investigator that Ryle had asked him December whether he wanted to help Ryle with a plan to “get rid” of Andrea Ryle.
Henderson told the investigator that he thought Trooper Ryle was joking and didn’t report it.
An attempt to reach Henderson for comment at the Highway Patrol office in Casper was not successful on Tuesday. An officer there said any comment on the case would have to come from patrol headquarters.
The affidavit states that Henderson told DCI that Ryle had spoken to him previously of a plan to have a semi-truck and trailer crash into a car carrying Andrea Ryle.
“Henderson told the DCI agents there were several variations of Franklin Ryle’s plan to kill his wife,” the affidavit states.
“In one variation, Franklin Ryle planned to stop a Wal-Mart truck or a Haliburton (sic) truck. Franklin Ryle was going to kill the diver by breaking the driver’s neck, or by choking him, or by forcing him at gunpoint to drink alcohol,” the affidavit states. “Then Ryle was going to stage a crash involving the truck and Ryle’s car. Andrea Ryle would be in that car and would be killed. Another plan Ryle told Henderson was for Henderson to drive the truck into Ryle’s patrol car, injuring Franklin Ryle, who would then sue Wal-Mart for millions of dollars and collect insurance money.”
The affidavit states that Andrea Ryle told investigators that her husband had called her the evening of Jan. 8, telling her that he had “the opportunity of a lifetime.” She said that he instructed her to leave their children with her mother.
Andrea Ryle told investigators that Trooper Ryle told her that he planned to smash the truck driver’s head against the windshield, “to make it appear he died from injuries from the crash.” She said Trooper Ryle then intended to drive the truck down the road and smash it into his patrol car.
“She said her husband told her that if she helped him stage the accident, he ‘would not ever have to work again,'” the affidavit states.
Andrea Ryle told investigators that when she asked her husband the next day what had happened to the truck driver. She said they argued and he threatened to get a firearm and “do away with all of them.”
The affidavit states that after DCI agents interviewed Ryle on Jan. 28, he sent a text message to Trooper Henderson and asked him to dispose of a bag containing two vials and a syringe from his desk. Henderson did not follow the request.
Henderson told investigators that he and Ryle had obtained steroids in Mexico in 2003 or 2004 and smuggled them into the country for use in their bodybuilding program.
