Oregon Live – by Carli Brosseau
Blaine Cooper, a member of the core group that took over the Malheur National Wildlife Refuge on Jan. 2, was arrested Thursday in southwestern Utah.
He was booked into jail in Washington County, Utah, which includes the city of St. George, online jail records show. The arresting agency was listed as the FBI.
An indictment was unsealed in federal court in Portland on Thursday. Cooper was charged with conspiracy to impede officers of the United States, the same charge that has been leveled against at least 20 others involved in the 41-day bird sanctuary occupation.
Cooper’s wife, Melissa Cooper, took to Facebook following the arrest to solicit donations and update supporters. She also participated in the occupation, helping to organize supplies and cook.
Melissa Cooper wrote on Facebook that she was taking her two daughters back to Arizona. Officers arrested her husband in front of her and the children at the Canyon Ranch Motel in Springdale, Utah, she said. The family lives in Dewey-Humboldt, Arizona, a suburb of Prescott.
Blaine Cooper, 36, attended the memorial for occupation spokesman Robert “LaVoy” Finicum on Friday in Kanab, Utah. Asked why he had not been included in the first indictment linked to the occupation, Cooper said, “Luck maybe.”
He said Friday that he had not been home since he left the refuge Jan. 26 after learning that Finicum had been killed at a law-enforcement roadblock. He traveled in an armed convoy to Nevada and had been in Utah in preparation for Finicum’s memorial.
Among the the others in the most recent round of arrests was Cliven Bundy, the Nevada rancher who touched off an armed showdown with federal authorities in 2014 and applauded the occupation in Oregon that was organized by two of his sons.
Bundy was arrested late Wednesday at Portland International Airport and faces federal charges related to the 2014 standoff at his ranch. He also attended Finicum’s memorial in Utah last week.
Six others have been named in the indictment that named Cooper. They are Corey Lequieu, 45, of Nevada; Neil Wampler, 68, of California; Jason Charles Blomgren, also known as “Joker J”; Darryl William Thorn, Wesley Kjar; and Eric Lee Flores. Two names remained redacted Thursday afternoon.
Wampler was convicted in 1977 of second-degree murder in the killing of his father.
This post will be updated when more information is available.
— The Oregonian’s Everton Bailey Jr. contributed to this report.
— Carli Brosseau
http://www.oregonlive.com/oregon-standoff/2016/02/blaine_coopers_wife_says_he_ha.html
aren’t they charging him with setting up the snipers at the Bundy standoff?
File a Writ of Mandamus and find out Norma.
Looks like the Feds and Reid are finally getting their revenge on everyone.
Rest but prepare my brothers. Soon it will be the one! When it is…
Amen Bulldog. Hope your well down there brother.
Something inside me thinks we are being played by the majority of these folks. The whole gig was a setup to start with, I don’t know………….
I am with you, Misty. A lot to gain and a lot of questionable characters. Not sold on any level even close to what’s being told or sold.
This whole situation is suspect. I don’t believe any portion of it is a naturally-occurring phenomenon. It smells strongly of a government set-up to me – it always has.
The patriots need attorneys with the qualities of Jack Zimmerman and Dick DeGuerin, of Waco defense fame. Over and over, they were able to show what a pack of low-life, serial liars, the FBI and ATF are. That’s what is needed here.
at·torn
əˈtərn/
verbLaw
verb: attorn; 3rd person present: attorns; past tense: attorned; past participle: attorned; gerund or present participle: attorning
formally make or acknowledge a transfer of something.
archaic
transfer (something) to someone else.
cant win when the person who is hired to transfer something to someone else is in fact sworn by oath to the BAR(british accredited registry) and usually the state or district presiding(authority) over the case. A dual oath and neither are to you.
good luck with lawyer-ing