Both Bundy brothers, the sons of anti-government Bunkerville rancher Cliven Bundy, are being held without bail and face a February 24 arraignment.
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After the occupation unraveled following the arrests, only four protesters remained at the refuge.
Earlier this week, a federal Grand Jury returned an indictment to prosecutors charging the armed occupiers with conspiracy to impede officers of the United States.
Jody Holzworth, a regional spokeswoman for the U.S. Fish and Wildlife Service, says there have been no specific threats against those refuges and the agency just wants to ensure the safety of employees and visitors.
The indictments, handed down Wednesday and unsealed Thursday, could complicate negotiations with the four remaining holdouts, given that they have called on the Federal Bureau of Investigation to release and not charge them in exchange for their surrender.
The Bundy brothers and nine others were arrested last week in OR, a lot of them during a confrontation with Federal Bureau of Investigation and state police on a snow-covered roadside where a spokesman for the group, Robert “LaVoy” Finicum, was shot to death.
The defendants include Ammon Bundy, who reportedly led the group in the takeover of the Malheur National Wildlife Refuge. An attorney for arrested protester Jason Patrick, named in the indictment, referred to the holdouts as “four idiots” at odds with his client’s aims.
During the preliminary hearings Wednesday, prosecutors are expected to offer evidence to establish probable cause for the arrests. The remaining occupiers are David Fry, 27, of Blanchester, Ohio; Jeff Banta, 46, of Elko, Nevada; and Sean Anderson, 48, and Sandy Anderson, 47, a married couple from Riggins, Idaho.
She said the pretrial hearing would’ve been an opportunity for defense attorneys to question law enforcement about their statements made in criminal complaints.
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Bundy and his alleged co-conspirators took control of the federal facility at the Malheur Wildlife Refuge near the rural town of Burns as an act of protest for what they said was an unfair prison sentence given to a local rancher accused of burning federal land. Defense attorneys demanded the immediate unsealing of the indictment, a request denied Wednesday by U.S. Magistrate Judge Janice Stewart. “Go home, FBI. It is time to end this”. Many were taken into custody during a traffic stop last week that left one occupier dead.
