A legal saga that included two hung juries, two trials and months of testimony in Las Vegas ended Monday for two defendants in the Bundy Ranch standoff case with a plea deal.
Eric Parker and O. Scott Drexler pleaded guilty to a misdemeanor charge of obstructing a court order and will not serve additional time in prison, getting credit for time served.
Parker and Drexler initially were charged with conspiracy, extortion, carrying weapons during crimes of violence, assaulting and threatening federal officers, and interference with interstate commerce for their roles in taking up arms against the federal government.
“We started off with 11 different felonies with the possibility of life in prison,” Las Vegas defense lawyer Jess Marchese said Monday. “Now we are talking about a year of probation.”
Marchese, who represents Parker, called the outcome a victory and said both he and his client are glad the case has been settled.
“We can chalk one up in the win column,” he said.
Parker and Drexler, both of Idaho, were among the first of six defendants to go to trial over the 2014 standoff, which pitted armed ranchers and militia members against Bureau of Land Management agents.
Federal prosecutors so far have been unable to secure a clear victory against the defendants, whom they accuse of conspiring to prevent a lawful roundup of Nevada rancher Cliven Bundy’s cattle in a dusty wash under Interstate 15 about 70 miles north of Las Vegas.
Last year, the government charged 19 people for their roles in the standoff. Two men took plea deals. Trials for the remaining defendants were broken into three tiers based on their alleged levels of culpability in the standoff.
A jury in April deadlocked on charges against four of the six defendants. It convicted two others on multiple counts. But jurors could not agree on conspiracy charges — a key component of the government’s case — against any of the six.
The government launched its retrial of the four defendants in July. But a second federal jury did not return any guilty verdicts after four days of deliberation.
Jurors acquitted Richard Lovelien of Oklahoma and Steven Stewart of Idaho. It returned not-guilty verdicts on the most serious charges against Parker and Drexler and deadlocked on weapons and assault charges against them.
After the verdicts, U.S. District Court Judge Gloria Navarro released Parker and Drexler from custody after about 18 months in prison. She ordered them tried a third time on the outstanding charges.
But rather than trying them separately, she ruled they would stand trial this month alongside five others accused of leading the standoff, including Cliven, Ryan and Ammon Bundy, Ryan Payne and Pete Santilli.
The U.S. Attorney’s Office in Nevada declined to comment Monday. In a prepared statement, officials said Parker and Drexler “presented a show of force in order to interfere with and impede the officers in the performance of their duties pursuant to federal court orders.”
An image of Parker lying prone on an overpass and sighting down a long rifle at BLM agents in the wash below has come to symbolize the 2014 protest. The picture galvanized the public and brought international awareness to the feud over public lands.
Marchese said the maximum prison term for the obstruction charge is one year, so Parker and Drexler will both get time served during a sentencing hearing scheduled in February.
Both will retain their rights to own weapons as part of the plea deal.
Marchese said the Oct. 1 mass shooting in Las Vegas played a part in Parker’s decision to accept the plea deal.
The environment isn’t right for “white guys from Bunkerville and Mesquite who were armed” to argue gun charges in a Las Vegas courtroom, Marchese said.
Hundreds were injured and 58 people died when a lone gunman opened fire with automatic weapons from the 32nd floor of the Mandalay Bay hotel casino into a crowd of concertgoers on the Las Vegas strip.
“I applaud the U.S. Attorney’s Office for making that offer,” Marchese said. “We were prepared to go to trial.”
For decades, the BLM repeatedly ordered Bundy to remove his cattle from federal lands and in 2014 obtained a court order to seize his cattle as payment for more than $1 million in unpaid grazing fees.
Hundreds of supporters from every state in the union, including members of several militia groups, converged on his ranch about 70 miles north of Las Vegas.
The standoff was hailed as a victory by militia members. Ammon and Ryan Bundy cited their success at Bundy Ranch in their run-up to the siege of an Oregon wildlife refuge in 2016, also in protest of BLM policies. An Oregon federal jury acquitted Ammon and Ryan Bundy and five others in October.
No arrests were made in the Bundy Ranch case until after the Oregon siege ended.
The next trial in the Bundy case is scheduled to begin Oct. 30.
These two brave souls just might have changed the course of this whole goddamn thing. Maybe, just maybe these guys might have done something great here.
Or am I just wishing too much…
Looking forward to Henry’s take on this whole damn shit show.
PARKER AND DEXLER NEED TO BE HANGED FOR TREASON……….. BRAVE SOULS MY ASS…………
Never take a Gdammed plea.
.sonofabeotch
not brave , ..nope ..more then likely heavily forced, possibly told things will happen to those they love if they dont “play along” ‘
this is bullchit
now we see the cards they are playing with this BS Vegas crap
and it stinks to high heaven
Their wives talked them into the plea, I understand it. Well, they were brave at one time, folded when they were faced with big time. Hanged for treason? That’s a bit of a stretch, pun intended.
I,ve been to jail more than I care to talk about, never prison, just county, still a living hell.
This whole damn thing is hard to wrap your head around man. Wife and children at home, tough. But I guess Henry is right, they should have thought about that before they even left the house.
I,m just a spoiled city boy that could use a little back woods kick ass I guess. Jesus H Christ, you have to play hard ball with the feds big time, which relates to big time behind bars before ever seeing daylight.
I guess they should have just blown some heads off, at least this way they knew where they stood.
That corrupt judge needs the noose real bad. She is a stain in the underwear of America.