Trial set to begin in 2017 for defendants in ‘Bundy Ranch Standoff ‘
BY TERRY SMITH
Two Hailey men remain incarcerated in Nevada, facing multiple federal charges for their alleged participation in a standoff with federal officers in 2014 in a case that is now commonly known as “The Bundy Ranch Standoff.”
Eric J. Parker, 32, and Steven A. Stewart, 36, are among 19 defendants charged in the Bundy case, including Cliven Bundy, a Nevada rancher who faced confiscation of his cattle herd by the U.S. Bureau of Land Management near Bunkerville, Nev., on April 12, 2014.
The BLM contends that Bundy owed nearly $1 million in grazing fees for illegally grazing his cattle on federal land over a 20-year period.
Parker and Stewart were among hundreds of Bundy supporters, some of them armed, who flocked to the Bunkerville area to support Bundy. Faced with the threat of an armed confrontation, the federal officers backed away from the situation.
However, some 700 days later, in February and March of this year, a federal grand jury issued indictments charging Bundy, Parker, Stewart and the other 16 defendants with crimes that could place them in prison for the rest of their lives. With issuance of the indictments, Parker, Stewart and the other defendants were arrested.
A federal judge in Las Vegas has set a trial date for Feb. 6, 2017 and has ordered that all 19 defendants be tried together.
Attempts for pretrial release of some of the defendants on bond have not succeeded. According to the Associated Press, the federal judge has determined that the defendants present a threat to society.
The defendants are charged with the federal crimes of conspiracy to commit an offense against the United States, conspiracy to impede or injure a federal officer, using and carrying a firearm in relation to a crime of violence, assault on a federal officer, threatening a federal law enforcement officer, obstruction of due administration of justice, interference with interstate commerce by extortion and interstate travel in aid of extortion.
Parker and Stewart are both members of the constitutional rights organization 3% of Idaho, which organized a rally in support of the defendants at the state capitol building in Boise on April 30. Some 200 Idaho people and out-of-state visitors attended the rally.
Reporter Anthony Dephue wrote in the online conservative publication Eagle Rising that the purpose of the rally was “to collectively voice growing dissatisfaction with what is rapidly becoming a crescendo of unlawful federal overreach in land disputes, unjust incarcerations, suppression of Constitutionally guaranteed rights, and… questionable, at best, use of lethal force.”
Dephue wrote further that some of the defendants have been unjustly held in solitary confinement and the refusal for a pretrial release is unwarranted because most of the defendants have little or no “substantial criminal history.”
Brandon Curtiss, president of 3% of Idaho, is quoted in the Dephue story as calling on “liberty-minded patriot groups to set aside their differences and work to collectively raise voices that cannot be ignored.”
Curtiss said further that changes in the way government operates can be addressed in elections.
“We need to make the change on the ballot,” he stated. “We need people right here to get on the ballot. Sitting back in the shadows isn’t going to get it done anymore.
“We’re not extremists, we’re not anti-government,” Curtiss stated. “We love our government the way our Constitution set it up.”