Stalking a romantic rival resulted in a Powell man getting shot in June and this week, it resulted in a prison sentence as well.

At a Tuesday hearing in Park County District Court, Jacob P. Ely accepted a two- to four-year prison sentence on a felony count of stalking. The charge stemmed from a June 23 incident, in which Ely — despite having been ordered to stay away from his ex-girlfriend and her new boyfriend — followed the boyfriend to his home in rural Powell. After spotting Ely pursuing him, the man pulled over and a confrontation ensued. Ely, 41, reportedly tried hitting the man with a baseball bat, and he shot Ely in the right calf. Ely fled, but was eventually taken to a hospital and then to jail, where he’s remained since.

District Court Judge Bill Simpson called it a “terribly unfortunate event.”

“[It] could have been worse, and it was bad enough as it was,” he said, calling Ely’s actions “unforgivable and inexcusable.”

Simpson said there were so many other ways that the situation could have been handled peacefully.

“I would hope, sir, that during your time at the Wyoming State Penitentiary, you might contemplate what you did, you might try to take a different path in your life, and realize that … what you did, it was all avoidable,” Simpson said.

Ely, who spoke little at the hearing, said he understood.

The 41-year-old pleaded guilty to the felony stalking charge in exchange for a few other counts being dismissed — including a couple related to allegations that he’d previously stalked his ex and harassed her boyfriend in April.

Charging documents say Ely was suspected to have driven around the woman’s workplace, parked near her home and to have been behind a series of anonymous, threatening messages sent to the woman, her boyfriend and her friends.

“... Wait to see what’s about to blast through your window,” one of the messages said.

The woman and her boyfriend told police they believed Ely had used an app to place calls and send messages from a variety of fake phone numbers.

“Don’t worry the day is coming that he just f—ng snaps anyways and he let’s us go through with our plan and just come up in there and take care of all yall,” Powell Police Officer Trevor Carpenter quoted one message as saying, adding that it was “unknown who ‘he’ is in this threat.”

In another incident, Ely allegedly pounded on the door of his ex’s Powell residence; she told police she was “scared that next time Jacob [Ely] will get inside her house and kill her,” Carpenter wrote in an affidavit. 

Park County Circuit Court Judge Joey Darrah issued a civil protection order in April that barred Ely from contacting either the woman or her boyfriend; Darrah further prohibited Ely from having contact with the pair as a part of bail conditions tied to the alleged criminal stalking in April.

In court on Tuesday, Ely acknowledged that he’d violated both the protection order and his bail conditions, though his court-appointed defense attorney, Tim Blatt, indicated the situation had not been entirely black-and-white. 

Between April and June, Blatt said the woman “kind of wavered back and forth” on whether she still wanted to be with Ely. Blatt said that, despite the protection order and bail conditions barring contact, the woman actually reached out to Ely “several times.”

The woman did not participate in Tuesday’s hearing, but the man Ely was convicted of stalking, Channing Owen, did address the court.

Owen said he could talk about the impact of Ely’s threats against him and his children, but instead offered some grace.

“After I shot you, people were coming to talk to me about it, and everyone asked why I didn’t kill you, and they said I should have,” Owen said, “but I didn’t, and I didn’t feel like that was the right thing to do.”

In fact, Owen said he felt bad that Ely is “dealing with all this, plus being shot,” indicating he didn’t believe Ely deserved prison time.

“All I wanted you to do is go away,” Owen said, adding, “everything would have been just fine if you would have just left me alone.”

The roughly five months Ely has spent in jail will count toward his two to four years of prison time.

The conviction is Ely’s second felony, following a 2018 conviction for possessing a controlled substance. The case stemmed from a 2016 traffic stop in Powell, in which an officer caught Ely with over 11 grams of meth, a digital scale, plastic baggies, over $1,000 in cash and a pistol.

Simpson expressed hope that Ely will reflect on his actions during his upcoming prison term  and take advantage of programs on anger management and self control.