An Otto man is facing multiple felony charges after he allegedly rammed his truck into a sedan carrying three Powell teens in December.

Charging documents allege that Clifford P. Winters, 45, hit the vehicle after the teens attempted to fight with his teenage son at his home. Winters allegedly told a Big Horn County sheriff’s deputy afterwards that he had “screwed up.”

According to the account that the Powell teens later gave to authorities, Winters’ 18-year-old son initially suggested they fight at his house outside of Otto, then told them to meet at The Church of Jesus Christ of Latter-day Saints in Burlington.

“The next thing they knew a truck was coming right at them in the parking lot, slamming into the side of the car they were sitting in,” Big Horn County Sheriff’s Deputy Seth Hoblit wrote in an affidavit.

Charging documents don’t describe any specific injuries from the crash, but say one teen began experiencing a “medical emergency” due to an underlying heart condition; all three from Powell were taken to Powell Valley Hospital while their Pontiac Grand Am reportedly sustained significant damage.

Big Horn County prosecutors have charged Winters with three felony counts: two of aggravated assault and battery and another of property destruction. He is currently free on a $5,000 bond while awaiting an arraignment.

What happened

According to the sheriff’s office’s investigation, the 17- and 18-year-olds from Powell and Winters’ son, Clifford T. Winters, had agreed to fight after swapping insults on Snapchat and Instagram.

The younger Winters had suggested they fight at his house east of Otto, the affidavit indicates, and the Powell teens pulled up to the Winters’ driveway late on Dec. 16 or early on Dec. 17.

The younger Winters said the teens kept trying to get him to come outside, the affidavit says, so he got his father, who’d awoken to a motion alarm.

After hearing that the teens were there to beat up his son, the elder Winters went outside and fired three shots into the ground, the affidavit says.

That caused the Powell teens to leave and the elder Winters “thought it was over,” the affidavit says; Deputy Hoblit said he later reviewed messages in which one of the teens said they were heading back to Powell and would fight another time.

However, the younger Winters “continued to want to fight and told them to come back,” suggesting they meet at the Church of Jesus Christ of Latter-day Saints in Burlington, Hoblit wrote. The younger Winters reportedly told the group he would come alone in his father’s truck, according to the affidavit.

The elder Winters, however, apparently had a different understanding of how things had transpired: The father reportedly told the deputy that the teens were the ones who’d suggested fighting at the church and that they had told his son to come alone.

The elder Winters “stated he was not going to have that happen and he was upset,” the affidavit says. The father then reportedly drove his son to the church some 12 miles away, crashing into the teens’ vehicle around 1:30 a.m.

Hoblit said the passenger side of the teens’ Pontiac “caved in” from the impact of the Ford.

“I asked Clifford P. Winters if he automatically just pulled into the church and rammed into them,” the deputy wrote. “Clifford P. Winters nodded his head saying, ‘Yup.’ He then stated, ‘I screwed up.’”

When the three teens got out of their car, the elder Winters reportedly stepped out of his Ford with a Glock 43 pistol in hand. The teens said the man cocked the weapon and pointed it at them, but he denied doing so, the affidavit says.

Dismissed charges

In one of the counts of aggravated assault, Big Horn County Prosecuting Attorney Marcia Bean alleges that the elder Winters “attempted to cause serious bodily injury” under circumstances that “showed an extreme indifference to the value of human life.” In the other, Bean is alleging that he “threatened to use a drawn deadly weapon” — specifically, his truck — when not necessary for defense.

The elder Winters waived his right to a preliminary hearing on those counts and the property destruction charge last week, sending the case to Big Horn County District Court; Bean dropped a fourth charge of conspiracy to commit aggravated assault and battery.

Bean had originally filed the same conspiracy charge against the younger Winters, but Big Horn County Circuit Court Magistrate Randy Royal dismissed it at a preliminary hearing in early January; Royal concluded that there was not enough evidence to support the case.

The younger Winters served 23 days in the Basin jail between the December incident and early January, as he was unable to make bail.

The elder Winters, meanwhile, posted $5,000 and was released the day after the incident, court records say. He’s required to wear a GPS ankle monitor, among other conditions, while continuing to work as the supervisor of the Big Horn County Weed and Pest District.

“We all believe that a person is innocent until proven guilty,” the chair of the district’s board of directors, Tim Beck, told the Greybull Standard last week, “and we will not act upon anything until or if and when we have a court decision.”

Clifford P. Winters is set to formally enter a plea to the charges at a Tuesday arraignment in Big Horn County District Court.