John P. Carr was sentenced to probation on Thursday for running his truck into a woman after drinking at a Great Falls bar in 2023. He drove away from the scene, leaving the victim with serious injuries.
Shortly before the incident, Carr asked the victim if she was transgender and continued to yell at her about being trans, according to court documents. But throughout the case, which spanned 2.5 years, both the defense attorney and the prosecutor maintained that there was no ideological motive in the case and that alcohol and a faulty pickup were the main factors.
As part of a plea agreement, Carr pleaded no contest to felony criminal endangerment earlier this year. On Thursday, Cascade County District Court Judge John Parker followed the recommended sentence of five years, all of which are suspended.
The victim, Carlin Meyer, was in attendance but did not testify at the hearing. She suffered a fractured pelvis and a puncture wound in her thigh during the incident.
In a sentencing memorandum, Chief Criminal Deputy County Attorney Kory Larsen wrote that Carr’s pickup had a mechanical issue that caused it to lurch forward — a detail that was not in the initial charging documents. That, coupled with Carr’s drinking, led to Meyer’s injuries. Larsen wrote that there was no evidence that Carr intentionally drove into Meyer.
“While Carr’s statements prior to the collision are disturbing, the evidence supports this being criminal endangerment resulting from the consumption of alcohol coupled with a poorly maintained pickup,” Larsen wrote.
Carr underwent a pre-sentence investigation with a probation officer, which is a common step in criminal cases. The full investigation is sealed from public view, but both Larsen and Carr’s defense attorney noted concerning statements Carr made during the interviews.
In a court memo, defense attorney Samir Aarab wrote that the investigator expressed “grave concern” about Carr’s ability to take accountability and that “he might again harm someone based on his beliefs and assumptions.” Speaking with the investigator, Carr also struggled to repeat what he asked Meyer on the night of the incident: “Are you one of those transgender people?”
Aarab argued that Carr is not politically motivated and pointed to the defendant’s written statement. Carr wrote, “I don’t hate anyone or anything — race or gender.” Aarab characterized Carr as a working-class man whose comments came from a lack of social awareness.
Larsen, the prosecutor, also noted “some obvious concerns” from Carr’s statements in the pre-sentence investigation. But he concluded that they can be addressed through treatment and “other rehabilitative tools.” Larsen’s memo said that investigators scored Carr as a low risk to reoffend despite having at least one DUI and other “alcohol-related offenses” on his record.
Writing in a court memo issued prior to Thursday’s hearing, defense attorney Aarab also urged Judge Parker not to associate Carr with anti-LBGTQ+ bigotry. He wrote that while the Great Falls community has necessary conversations about how to support people no matter their gender expression, this case was not the venue for that discussion.
“He is not a symbol,” Aarab wrote. “He is not a proxy for a larger cultural battle.”
Larsen and Aarab noted the media attention on this case, including from Montana Free Press, that focused on Carr’s comments about gender identity prior to the incident. Before handing down the sentence, Judge Parker said that he had not read those media reports.
In February, Meyer filed a civil lawsuit against Carr and the Montana Cowboys Association, which operates the Cowboys Bar and Museum. That’s where Carr hit Meyer with his pickup. Meyer’s complaint in that lawsuit also dismissed an ideological motive for the incident and said that Carr “negligently put his vehicle into drive instead of reverse,” pinning Meyer against the wall of the bar. Meyer’s lawsuit didn’t discuss gender-expression bias as part of the incident.
The lawsuit did describe security camera footage of Carr from the night of the incident. Carr was seen giving someone the middle finger, sitting at strangers’ tables and slapping a woman’s buttocks. The lawsuit also claims Cowboys Bar failed to give all of the video footage from that night to law enforcement, and it wasn’t known if that footage was deleted.
Meyer’s lawsuit alleged negligence against Cowboys Bar for overserving Carr. The case was dormant for months, with no responses filed by either Carr or Cowboys Bar. Late last month, Meyer’s attorney requested that the bar be dropped from the lawsuit. The civil lawsuit remains active, with only Carr as the defendant.
Meyer’s attorney in the civil case declined to comment.
This story was originally published by Montana Free Press at montanafreepress.org.
