Man gets six-month jail term for brandishing gun at Evansville bar

CASPER, Wyo. — An Evansville man will serve a six-month county jail sentence after a series of altercations at a bar in Evansville on Dec. 26, 2023, which culminated in him pointing a gun at the bar’s owner.

Matthew Mikalowsky, 52, appeared for sentencing before Dan Forgey on Monday morning.

“I am extremely relieved no one got hurt or killed,” he said in a presentence report recited by his attorney, Ryan Semerad. Semerad said he’d rarely had a client who expressed such remorse, and also noted that his client’s name had been misspelled throughout the case.

Mikalowsky had entered an Alford guilty plea. Chief Deputy District Attorney Blaine Nelson said this was due to the defendant’s reportedly blacked-out state at the time of the offense.

Semerad said Mikalowsky had maintained sobriety and had been engaged in other treatment while on bond, and said the courts were not likely to see him again. Mikalowsky appeared in court clean-shaven and well-dressed and was taken into custody by deputies at the conclusion of the hearing.

Multiple agencies responded to the bar around 11:45 p.m. on Tuesday, Dec. 26 to a report of a man pointing a weapon at patrons and threatening to shoot them. When officers arrived, Mikalowsky reportedly put the gun on the table and was handcuffed and arrested, according to the affidavit. 

The bar owner told police he’d gone to intervene after seeing Mikalowsky become “argumentative with a female patron,” the affidavit stated. The bar owner said he was also punched in the shoulder by Mikalowsky before Mikalowsky took the gun out of his waistband.

Mikalowsky was charged with aggravated assault and battery and charged under Wyoming Statute 6-8-104 (t) (vii), which forbids even licensed concealed carriers from bringing a weapon into “any portion of an establishment licensed to dispense alcoholic liquor and malt beverages for consumption on the premises.”

Mikalowsky will have the remainder of a four- to eight-year suspended sentence when he gets out, and will serve three years of supervised probation.