Officially speaking, the case against Trevor Huckaby ended on July 16.

He stood at his answering machine that afternoon, overcome upon learning that a judge dismissed the charges against him.

Police forced their way into his darkened Casper hotel room four months earlier, searching for a person who'd threatened to blow up the building. He was arrested, jailed and later fired from his job.

All that seemed behind him now. People would stop treating him with suspicion. Maybe he'd get his job back.

"I was really overwhelmed," Huckaby recalled this week from his home in Rapid City, S.D. "I had a lot of different emotions running through. I really don't know how to explain it."

But as the legal waters receded, they left behind a residue of suspicion. Potential employers didn't call him back. Former co-workers wouldn't talk to him.

Nearly six months after the case against him was dropped, Huckaby still feels its embrace. He can't find employment, forcing his wife to take on a second job to make ends meet. The bills are piling up and he still encounters one-time acquaintances who won't wave back.

"It's not like it just ruined my life," he said. "It ruined quite a few lives."

The arrest

It began the night of March 15. As Huckaby tells it, the police came in with guns drawn, asking for a cell phone he didn't have.

He had just dozed off. At first, he thought someone was breaking into his room at Casper's Best Western Ramkota Hotel. Then he saw guns pointed in his direction. His heart began racing and he put up his hands.

He'd been staying at the hotel for about a week. A maintenance man at the Ramkota in Rapid City, he'd come to the Casper hotel because the staff there needed more help.

As the officers began searching the room, Huckaby, 26, sat on the bed and asked what was happening.

"When they found out I didn't have a cell phone, that's when they told me they had threatening phone calls and it came back to me," he said.

Officers responded to the hotel about 11 p.m. because someone had made several threatening calls and was demanding money.

The caller told hotel staff there was more than two pounds of explosives in the boiler room. He gave them one hour to deposit $5 million into a bank account.

Officers tried tracking the call and came up with Huckaby's name, according to a police affidavit from his arrest. After learning Huckaby was staying at the hotel, officers went to his room and forced open the door.

Huckaby said he told police he'd been on the phone talking with his wife until about 15 minutes before they arrived. After he told them he didn't have a cell phone, police suspected he used his computer to make the threatening calls.

Soon, Huckaby found himself interrogated by two detectives.

"I told them I was innocent," he recalled. "They said they had information on me. I just kept telling them I didn't do it."

At the end of the interview, police formally arrested Huckaby. He was charged with blackmail and making terroristic threats and faced the prospect of up to 13 years in prison.

The aftermath

Sandra Huckaby learned of her husband's arrest at 3:30 a.m. on March 16.

She had been married to Trevor for five years and found him to be a kind man who was good with their two-year-old daughter, Abby. Bomb threats weren't in his nature.

"I was mad because of him being arrested," she said. "I know he wouldn't do this."

Trevor Huckaby spent several days in jail before his grandmother put up the $5,000 bond for his release. After a court appearance, he went back to his Rapid City mobile home on March 23 and quickly discovered some of his past acquaintances now viewed him with suspicion.

"Most of them, like when I went in to get my last check and bring in my uniform, most of the people I used to work with wouldn't talk to me," Huckaby said. "The only one that actually talked to me was my supervisor, who said he was baffled by it and he couldn't believe it."

The Ramkota fired Huckaby following his release. He had worked for the hotel chain for five years.

"That was that," Huckaby said. "I wasn't going to say anymore. I just acknowledged it and that was that."

The case

Cindi Wood, a private attorney in Casper who sometimes handles public defender cases, became Huckaby's lawyer.

Reviewing the case, she felt the allegations against him didn't add up. Nor did Huckaby come across as a guilty man. He was a family man with no criminal history.

"Trevor is innocent," she said. "It isn't that he was not guilty. I don't believe he had anything to do with any of that."

Wood felt there were problems with the prosecution's case. For one, Huckaby loved his job. Additionally, police said the man who threatened the hotel made several calls that night. But Huckaby had given Wood proof that his phone call with his wife had lasted two hours.

"It wasn't the hang up, get back on," she said. "It was a solid time."

Although she says her client was offered a plea agreement, Wood wanted to present the case to a jury.

"We really felt like if we went to trial, people would see who this person really is," she said.

Before that happened, the Natrona County District Attorney's Office in July decided to drop the case. Prosecutors said it appeared "there is reasonable doubt as to Mr. Huckaby's guilt," court documents show.

Huckaby was relieved. Even though he maintained his innocence, the possibility of prison gnawed at him.

"I always hoped they would see I wasn't guilty and would dismiss it," he said.

Further investigation into the case led to doubts about Huckaby's guilt, Natrona County District Attorney Michael Blonigen said at the time of the dismissal.

In an interview this week, Blonigen said he still feels the same as he did in June: Huckaby probably didn't commit the crime, but he can't be certain.

"I'm just not all that sure about what happened," he said.

Blonigen declined to comment on whether authorities have other suspects in the case.

"We definitely did further investigation and nobody else has been charged at this time," he said.

Problems continue

Although Huckaby's legal problems ended, life didn't return to normal. He had started doing apartment maintenance for a family friend, but the work ran out in August. The Ramkota hotel in Rapid City refused to lift his do-not-hire status, Huckaby said.

"I was with the company so long, and one day I would like to come back and work for them," he said. "Pretty much from when I was 18, I worked for them."

Greg Schjodt, president of Regency Hotel Management, the company that operates the Ramkota hotels, declined to comment on the matter.

Huckaby tried finding another job, but so far, he's had no luck and believes the arrest in Casper is to blame. Prospective employers have informed him he wasn't qualified for jobs where he had considerable experience. The one interviewer he told about the dismissed charges never called him back.

Huckaby wants the Natrona County District Attorney's Office to write him a letter explaining to prospective employers what happened. He said he's contacted prosecutors, but got no response.

Blonigen said the rules of professional conduct for lawyers prevent his attorneys from having direct contact with Huckaby because Huckaby is represented by Wood on the case.

"We have to respect that representation," Blonigen said.

Wood said she understands the District Attorney's Office reluctance but added that she doesn't represent Huckaby anymore and doesn't have a problem with prosecutors talking to him.

She also said a prosecutor told her he would have no trouble speaking directly with a potential employer.

Huckaby would also like to be reimbursed for some of the expenses he incurred during his legal troubles, such as hotel rooms in Casper and the gas money it took to get there.

"I feel like, you know, one way or another, I deserve an apology from the state, I guess, or the city," he said. "Just because, listening to what is going on, it seems like they never did their investigation like they should of."

Suspicions prevail

Out in the community, things feel different. A co-worker he once helped won't talk or even wave to him. When people learn his name, some treat him differently, Huckaby said.

"Then they give me this look," he said. "I don't know what they are thinking."

Huckaby's inability to find another job has hurt the family's finances. Sandra Huckaby works about 60 hours a week at two jobs and has only one day off.

"Abby and him don't see much of me," she said.

Wood believes Huckaby's story offers an important lesson on the presumption of innocence - a bedrock principle of the justice system.

"I think when we see someone who has been charged with something, we should view them as innocent," she said. "We have these rights, and that's the presumption of innocence. When something happens and someone is falsely charged … accidents happen, mistakes happen. Mr. Huckaby's life, or anybody else's life, shouldn't be changed because accidents happen."

Reach Joshua Wolfson at (307) 266-0582 or at josh.wolfson@trib.com.