YELLOWSTONE NATIONAL PARK — A Yellowstone National Park (YNP) visitor has been sentenced to seven days of incarceration for reckless driving and more, according to a Tuesday announcement by the U.S. Attorney’s Office, District of Wyoming.
Alexander Villanueva, 37, of Las Vegas, Nevada, pled guilty to charges of reckless driving, failing to comply with a traffic control device, possessing an open container of alcohol in a vehicle and refusing to submit to a test of his breath on Jan. 14 in Mammoth, Wyoming, according to the announcement.
Law enforcement officers stopped Villanueva after another park visitor reported him for “an erratic driving pattern,” the announcement states. Villanueva was arrested after he was deemed unsafe to operate a motor vehicle following a field sobriety test. He refused to take a breath test after he was arrested, which carried the penalties of a seven-day incarceration term and a ban on operating a vehicle on any federal lands for one year.
Villanueva was also placed on a two-year unsupervised probation, including a ban from entering YNP during that time, and he was ordered to pay $1,020 in fines and court costs.
Similar cases were prosecuted in December 2024 in both Yellowstone and Grand Teton National Park.
