“He does not recognize federal courts – claiming they are illegitimate – does not recognize federal law, refuses to obey federal court orders, has already used force and violence against federal law enforcement officers while they were enforcing federal court orders, almost causing catastrophic loss of life or injury to others”, federal prosecutors said in court papers filed Tuesday.
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A criminal complaint accuses Bundy of unlawfully directing more than 200 followers to stop federal agents and contract cowboys who were trying to enforce a court order to round up about 400 Bundy cattle.
Cliven Bundy’s attorney, Noel Grefenson, did not object to the extradition request, Williams said in the filing.
Both Ammon and Ryan were also charged for participating in the Nevada standoff, along with Ryan Payne and Peter Santilli, according to the statement.
Calling his practices “unconventional if not freaky”, the government says Bundy lets his “feral herd” graze over thousands of acres in the Lake Mead National Recreation Area that surrounds his 160-acre ranch in rural Nevada.
Rancher Cliven Bundy and four other men, including his two sons, who led the armed occupation of Malheur National Wildlife Refuge in OR, were indicted in connection with a different 2014 armed standoff in Nevada. In 1993, federal lands around his ranch were designated as protected.
The new federal grand jury indictment in Nevada also names two additional key figures in the OR occupation – Ryan Payne, a 32-year-old Montana man, and Pete Santilli, a 50-year-old rightwing radio host from Ohio. Unvaccinated and susceptible to illness, the cattle have little contact with humans and Bundy often has no idea where they are, the government said. They had demanded that public lands be turned over to locals.
Cliven Bundy is accused of being part of a conspiracy to “commit an offense against the United States” and conspiracy to injure or impeded a federal officer, assault on a federal officer, threatening a federal officer, weapon use and possession, obstruction, extortion, and attempting to interfere with “commerce and interstate travel in aid or extortion”.
Bundy, 69, was arrested at Portland International Airport after deplaning on his way to visit his jailed son Ammon, arrested in a separate dispute.
Cliven Bundy and the other defendants are now in custody in Oregon. In its memorandum arguing for Bundy to be held in jail pending trial on six federal felony charges, the government argued that what Bundy does can only loosely be referred to as ranching.
According to the indictment, Cliven Bundy was the “leader, organizer and chief beneficiary” of the conspiracy and assault.
So yeah. The only difference between Cliven Bundy and a insane cat lady is the firepower.
Nevada rancher and melon farmer Cliven Bundy racked up more than $1.1 million fees and penalties dating back to the 1990s for letting cows graze illegally on government land near his ranch outside Las Vegas.
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In many ways, the armed Nevada standoff served as inspiration for this year’s occupation in Oregon. But an appeals court ruled the sentences were too short under federal law, and a federal judge ordered them back to prison for about four years each.
