“Persons who use force and violence against federal law enforcement officers … will be brought to justice”. Bundy is scheduled to be back in court Friday.
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In an effort to avoid violent confrontation, the government released the cows to Bundy.
What do you think about the actions of the Bundy family, the federal government ownership of a massive amount of land, and the supervision of that land by the BLM?
The federal indictment comes about a week after the collapse of the Malheur armed takeover.
“The defendants recruited, organized, and led hundreds of other followers in using armed force against law enforcement officers in order to thwart the seizure and removal of Cliven Bundy’s cattle from federal public lands”, the indictment said.
Bundy, who refused to pay grazing fees for his herd, had some 400 head of cattle seized by the Bureau of Land Management beginning on April 5.
The indictment charges the four with 16 felonies: one count of conspiring to commit an offense against the United States, one count of conspiring to impede or injure a federal officer, four counts of carrying a firearm in a crime of violence, two counts of assault on a federal officer, two counts of threatening a federal law enforcement officer, three counts of obstructing justice, two counts of interfering with interstate commerce by extortion and one count of interstate travel in aid of extortion.
Maximum sentences for each of those crimes range from five to 20 years in prison and up to $250,000 in fines.
If convicted of all six charges, he could spend the rest of his life in federal prison.
He came to OR to support a weekslong occupation at Malheur National Wildlife Refuge, which his sons, Ammon and Ryan Bundy, launched January 2 to demand the federal government turn over public lands to local control.
That 41-day standoff ended last week after the last of the holdouts surrendered to authorities.
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.
The 16 defendants were described by the Federal Bureau of Investigation as being among “dozens of highly armed militants occupying, visiting and supplying the refuge”.
Williams requested U.S. Marshals transport Bundy to Nevada, according to the court filing.
“This is a continuation of them overreaching – going far beyond their constitutional bounds and showing that they are willing to use the court system to prosecute people that were defending their rights; defending their property”, Ammon Bundy said in the message.
Ammon Bundy’s attorney, Mike Arnold, said, “the Nevada indictment is no surprise”.
All five are now being held without bail at the Multnomah County Detention Center in Portland, according to jail records.
Hundreds of thousands of acres of federal land called the Gold Butte surrounds the ranch.
Bundy said nothing in court.
The government is now questioning Bundy’s ranching skills.
Bundy allows his cattle to “run wild on the public lands with little, if any, human interaction until such time he traps them and hauls them off to be sold or slaughtered for his own consumption”, prosecutors said.
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Wednesday’s indictment identifies Cliven Bundy as the “leader, organizer, and chief beneficiary of the conspiracy”, and states that he “possessed ultimate authority” over the 2014 standoff.
