Group Occupied Federal Government Land, Offices for 41 Days, Causing Economic and Emotional Distress to Community
Ammon Bundy and his alleged co-conspirators have just been found not guilty of federal charges after they took over and occupied the Malheur National Wildlife Refuge in Oregon for 41 days early this year, causing great economic and emotional distress to the people living and working in the surrounding areas.
The jury ruled Bundy and six others were not guilty of conspiring to prevent federal government workers from doing their jobs.
Assistant U.S. Attorney Ethan Knight was unsuccessful in his prosecution.
Willamette Week detailed the trial:
A particularly jarring moment came when Knight delivered a blistering 15-minute cross-examination that underscored the irrelevance of most of Bundy’s testimony.
Knight mostly asked Bundy about statements he had made under direct examination.
Bundy denied or claimed not to remember events he had recently detailed. He suddenly insisted he wasn’t a leader of the occupation. He said he couldn’t remember whether he had been in Burns in November, after describing several November meetings with Harney County Sheriff Dave Ward. And he said the refuge wasn’t federal property, after outlining his foolproof plan to wrest control of federal property under the arcane process of adverse possession – a process nixed by the U.S. Supreme Court.
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