 Under existing United States federal law and Wyoming state law, crimes committed on the basis of sexual orientation could not be prosecuted as hate crimes.Within hours of discovering Shepard, his friends Walt Boulden and Alex Trout began to contact media organizations, claiming that Shepard had been assaulted because he was gay.According to prosecutor Cal Rerucha, "They were calling the County Attorney's office, they were calling the media and indicating Matthew Shepard is gay and we don't want the fact that he is gay to go unnoticed."