‘I’ll put a f****** bullet between your eyes.’ Former local football star sentenced for domestic battery

ST. ANTHONY – A former star football player was sentenced after he was found guilty by a jury of attacking a woman while camping, and threatening her and others’ lives over text.

After a jury trial in April, Jonryheem Wolfley-Peoples was found guilty of misdemeanors for domestic battery without a traumatic injury, use of telecommunication to harass, and assault.

The jury considered charges of felonies for domestic battery with traumatic injury and aggravated assault, but found him not guilty.

District Judge Steven Boyce sentenced Wolfley-Peoples to 40 days in jail with credit for four days already served, two years of supervised probation and at least $900 in court fines and fees.

Under Idaho State law, misdemeanor domestic battery is punishable by a fine of no more than $1,000, by imprisonment in a county jail not to exceed 1 year, or by both.

A misdemeanor for use of telecommunication to harass can be punished by a term of no more than one year in county jail.

The misdemeanor sentence for assault is $1,000, three months in the county jail, or both, according to the Idaho Legislature.

Wolfley-Peoples attended Rigby High School before being recruited by Brigham Young University where played defensive line in 2013. He transferred to Idaho State University in 2014, but was suspended from the team in 2016 after he was charged with two felony counts of delivery of a controlled substance (marijuana), according to the Idaho State Journal.

After college, Wolfley-Peoples was not drafted but was invited to participate in the New Orleans Saints’ rookie minicamp in 2018.

The case

On Aug. 14, 2025, a Fremont County Sheriff’s detective was assigned to a domestic violence case that occurred at a campsite between Davis Butte and Birds Eye Butte.

The victim met with the detective at the campsite and stated that she was camping with Wolfley-Peoples when he became angry that she hadn’t packed up the camping equipment and began calling her “lazy and worthless.”

She stated that she apologized and told him that it was “a lot for her to load up and she was cooking for him.” He reportedly replied that she was a “worthless b****.”

He then allegedly told her that he was going to “hit her, punch her, and abuse her every day for the next ten years.”

The victim says she began crying, saying “no”, and asking why, when Wolfley-Peoples “took a few steps, and lunged toward (the victim) and shoved (her),” says court documents.

Falling backward, the victim says she landed on her back. When she got up, her nose was bleeding, and Wolfley-Peoples reportedly said: “I don’t give a f***, start packing s*** up.”

The victim says she started packing, and her nose continued bleeding to the point where a blood clot came out of her left nostril.

Wolfley-People then left in a side-by-side, for what the victim says was between an hour and an hour and a half, leaving her alone by the truck.

Eventually, the victim says, he came back and “used the side-by-side to hit the driver’s side front door to shut it,” causing her to jump back.

On Sept. 10, the detective reviewed text messages that Wolfley-Peoples had reportedly sent to the victim in June 2025.

The texts reportedly stated things such as:

• “You ever turn off your location again on me, I’ll put a bullet between your f****** eyes myself in front of your f****** kids.”
• “I’m gunna [sic] beat the f*** out of you when I see you just, so you know.”
• “From 1130 [sic] till now you will have to explain every f****** second, and if your story doesn’t add up, you’re gonna get knocked the f*** out.”
• “I’ll beat the f*** out of you.”
• “Are you f****** retarded? Or you rally just want no f****** teeth.”
• “Let me find out that you’re lying to me about anything today and you’re putting a lot of people in jeopardy.”
• “When I f****** call your stupid f****** a**, answer the motherf****** phone I’m gonna slap the f****** s*** out of you.”

The sentencing

Beginning the hearing, the victim made a statement to the court, bluntly explaining that she does not wish to speak to Wolfley-Peoples because “he knows what he has done to my children and me.”

“The abuse didn’t start with violence. It started with words. I was called names, torn down, and made to feel small. Over time, that turned into control. Controlling where I went, what I did, who I spoke to, and how I felt,” the victim said. “Then it became financial abuse, where I was carrying the weight of providing while he drained our resources. And eventually it became physical. These are moments that will never leave me.”

The victim then described multiple instances of assault, including being choked while pregnant, when she came home and found her child covered in food with a soiled diaper.

“He hit me across the face in front of my son. I can still hear my son screaming,” the victim said. “That sounds stays with me.”

She then asked the court to please protect her and her children from Wolfley-Peoples, as he said she does not believe he will stop attempting to abuse them.

“We used to feel safe. We never locked our doors; now we do. We check the windows, and we look down the road to see if he could be coming. That fear is constant,” said the victim. “I have nightmares about him and the threats he has made. I carry anxiety that does not go away.”

Prosecutor for the state, Rocky Wixom, argued for a higher sentence than usually seen for misdemeanors of 90 days of local jail time upfront before being placed on probation, due to the extreme harassment and abuse the victim and her children endured.

“I’m going to recommend something substantially more than we see in most misdemeanor cases,” said Wixom. “He was making threats about putting a bullet between the victim’s eyes in front of (her) kids and just nonstop violence … those text messages that were just so inexcusable and so foul.”

Wixom continued, detailing the impact of the abuse on the victims and how it will impact their lives forever.

“A gentleman this size pushing a victim that size onto the ground, to the point where she smacks her head and has a blood clot come out of her nose. And he does it after threatening to kill her and the children out in the middle of nowhere,” said Wixom. “The impact and the fear that was placed on this victim is extreme … I think this victim needs to feel safe. Her kids need to feel safe. The victim needs to see a consequence, the defendant needs to feel a consequence.”

Wolfley-Peoples’ defense attorney RJ Hoopes recommended a suspended jail sentence and for his client to be placed on probation, due to his wanting to move to Utah for a job and having completed an anger management course.

“In the evenings, he’s doing DoorDash, where he’s trying to keep busy, trying to work to do what he can,” said Hoopes. “Your honor, he took it upon himself to complete an anger management course that was done online and without any court order from this court or the domestic court.”

Hoopes said that Wolfley-Peoples reported a positive outcome from the online course and stated that his client wants to improve in the future.

“I asked him what he thought about (the course), and how did it go? And he said, ‘I learned some things about myself that I didn’t know. Some triggers that caused me to act inappropriately,’ and he felt good about what he’s learned,” said Hoopes. “Because of the limited employment that he has here, he would like to reside in Utah, and move to Utah.”

Wolfley-Peoples then spoke to the court, blaming the victim and claiming that she is lying about feeling in danger when he is out of custody.

“Regarding the statement and everything that was said, there’s so much more than that. There’s so much more,” said Wolfley-Peoples. “There are always two sides to every story. I’m someone who was up here replacing and trying to just fix the patched. I replaced over 300 holes in our wall dealt by her. It stems from me being able to be the supportive person I tried to be for her.”

He continued, saying that the victim is not in any danger because of him and that he has grown since his arrest.

“The victim is safe. I do not have any ill will towards her or her family,” said Wolfley-Peoples. “I am more than past what has happened and the person that I was at that time a year ago, almost today. I have grown more personally, found myself in spots and positions that I never thought I could get out of, and proved to myself who I am to my core and who I’m not.”

Boyce then sentenced Wolfley-Peoples, stating that, even though the convictions are all misdemeanors, they remain serious.

“I’ve heard testimony from Wolfley-Peoples, who testified at trial; I heard the testimony from the victim who testified at trial, and other testimony,” said Boyce. “Looking at those factors, the court does have to come up with a sentence that would comport with the serious note of these misdemeanor allegations, including the fact that domestic violence is a serious offense under the misdemeanor criminal statutes, as is the assault and the other communications.”