Oregon Standoff Could End Tonight

A federal judge says she will not delay the September trial for occupiers of the Malheur National Wildlife Refuge occupation, despite defense objections.

Occupation organizer Ammon Bundy recently hired two new attorneys, and they requested more time to review hundreds of hours of video taken during the occupation and to file motions fighting his detention. His brother, Ryan Bundy, is representing himself and also joined the motion.

In court Wednesday, government prosecutors pointed out that it was Ammon Bundy himself who first pushed for a speedy trial. They argued that delaying the trial past Sept. 7, when U.S. District Court Judge Anna Brown hopes to begin, will cause logistical problems in Nevada.

Several of the defendants in the Oregon case also face charges related to a 2014 Bunkerville, Nevada, standoff between militants, led by the Bundy brothers and their father, Cliven Bundy, and federal officials. That trial is scheduled to begin in February 2017. Brown ruled she will not delay the trial in Oregon.

She said dozens of other defendants and their lawyers had no problems preparing for the September trial date.

Brown also said Ammon Bundy’s lawyers had failed to show that they were diligently preparing for the trial. She noted that “extraordinary accommodations” had already been made to ensure that the Bundy brothers can prepare for their trial while in detention.

Malheur National Wildlife Refuge occupier Blaine Cooper pleaded guilty Thursday to his actions in the standoff at the beginning of this year.

Cooper pleaded guilty to one count of conspiracy to impede federal workers by threat or intimidation.

According to federal prosecutor Craig Gabriel, the 37-year-old acted as a recruiter at the refuge in January, and urged supporters over video to bring their firearms to the federal site.

There is no evidence that Cooper possessed any firearms himself at the refuge.

Cooper was involved with another, similar dispute at the Sugar Pine Mine in Josephine County in 2015. As a part of the Malheur plea agreement, he will not face any charges for that incident.

Cooper’s plea agreement does not release him from charges he is still facing in Nevada for a 2014 standoff with Bureau of Land Management workers at Cliven Bundy’s ranch.

Gabriel recommended a split sentence, depending on what Cooper’s total sentence ends up being. For example, six months in custody with time served and six months in some form of alternative incarceration, such as a halfway house.

Cooper’s lawyer, Krista Shipsey, said Cooper told her that he “felt like a nobody” before Malheur, and felt that the so-called patriot movement gave him a purpose.

Cooper’s sentencing date is Nov. 18.

PORTLAND, Ore. — Ammon and Ryan Bundy and five of their followers, charged in the armed takeover of a federally owned Oregon wildlife sanctuary in January, were acquitted Thursday of federal conspiracy and weapons charges.

The verdict brings to a close a case that gripped the nation earlier this year with its public debate about government powers, public lands and constitutional rights.

There was a Wild West quality to the episode, with armed men in cowboy hats taking on federal agents in a tussle over public lands and putting out a call for aid, only to see their insurrection fizzle.

In a monthlong trial here, the defendants never denied that they had occupied and held the Malheur National Wildlife Refuge headquarters for nearly six weeks, demanding that the federal government surrender the 188,000-acre property to local control. But their lawyers argued that prosecutors did not prove that the group had engaged in an illegal conspiracy that kept federal workers — employees of the Fish and Wildlife Service and the Bureau of Land Management — from doing their jobs.

http://www.nytimes.com/2016/10/28/us/bundy-brothers-acquitted-in-takeover-of-oregon-wildlife-refuge.html?_r=0

With the first Oregon trial concluded, the Bundy brothers and several other defendants who participated in the Malheur occupation will now travel to Nevada, where they face charges for their roles in the Bunkerville standoff.