4 holdout occupiers at Oregon wildlife refuge are indicted

They were all charged with one count of conspiring to impede officers of the United States, and If convicted, could spend up to six years in prison. The indictment also states that “Beginning on January 2, 2016, defendants and conspirators threatened violence against anybody who attempted to remove them from the Malheur National Wildlife Refuge”.

The four remaining occupants of the Malheur refuge are among the indicted: Sean Anderson, Sandra Lynn Pfeifer Anderson, David Lee Fry and Jeff Wayne Banta. However, while he had previously told them to leave the refuge and said “this fight is ours for now in the courts”, this week he changed his message.

Ammon Bundy and the others are scheduled for hearings in federal court Wednesday afternoon.

The four armed activists still occupying a national wildlife refuge in OR have shown no signs they are ready to leave more than a week after the main figures in the standoff were arrested.

During the preliminary hearing, Cox and all the others asked to be released so they could attend the funeral for LaVoy Finicum, one of the occupiers who was shot last month during one of those traffic stops.

A total of 11 people, including the Bundy brothers, were arrested, although two members of the group – including the only female – were later released from jail, The Associated Press reported.

During the preliminary hearings Wednesday, prosecutors are expected to offer evidence to establish probable cause for the arrests.

Gavin Shire, chief of public affairs for the U.S. Fish and Wildlife Service, said national wildlife refuges across the nation and other sites run by the agency are exercising extra vigilance.

Named along with the Bundy brothers and Mr. Ritzheimer are Joseph O’Shaughnessy, Ryan Payne, Brian Cavalier, Shawna Cox, Peter Santilli, Jason Patrick, Duane Leo Ehmer, Dylan Anderson and Kenneth Medenbach.

Defense attorneys for Bundy and his peers staunchly maintain that the group was not committing a federal crime when converging upon the refuge, but engaging in an act of civil disobedience.

Last Friday, Ammon Bundy urged those still at the refuge to vacate the land so that their “lives would not be taken”, Fox News reports.

The Oregon State Sheriffs’ Association, a group that has publicly supported Ward, said Thursday that it did not stand by people who it described as arming themselves, breaking into publicly-owned buildings and intimidating and harassing local residents and officials.

He will remain in federal custody after a judge held off ruling on prosecutors’ request to keep him detained as he awaits trial.