Re: 150 Militia Take Over Makhuer National Wildlife Preserve Headquarters
February 26 · My name is Connie Fielding. I am one of many victims of Morgan Philpot and Rick Koeber. Morgan is running a fourth time for public office, after two major losses, for Utah Senate, District 14. The citizens of this District need to be aware that Morgan is not who he appears to be. He is a fraud. And Utah citizens need to be aware of indicted crook Rick Koerber, that he has moved onto his next scam. He cannot help but be a crook. He has to have his wealth and feed his ego (Free Capital Project). I am of information and belief that he and Rick are brothers in an organized crime family. Authorities are currently investigating them. And I am aware of four Complaints filed with the Utah State Bar against Morgan's bar license. They target cases where the Defendants have a lot to lose - careers, family, reputation, money, status, etc., they write up Retainer Agreements that include gag orders, so their clients will not talk, they have the new client deposit in Morgan's Credit Union account without sitting down at his office, because he doesn't have an office, then Rick goes to the Defendant and tells them they will be representing this huge lawsuit/claim against them, and "they can make it go away" (stall the case) if they will pay them cash, which they do. Rick is Morgan's Paralegal, Law Clerk and Office Administration (though he lives three hours north of SLC on his real estate given to him by the mob, Liberty Reef). Rick is not an attorney. Morgan is then done, and goes onto the next deal, using many of his FRIENDS to find clients for him like Connor Boyack and Kera Birkeland. Rick keeps stalling the client by making them believe he is doing his legal research and writing up a Complaint. Then they disappear, and do not respond to emails, text and phone calls. Reporters are investigating as well. IT ISN'T THE SMALL $5,000 RETAINER THAT THEY WANT - IT IS MONEY FROM THE DEFENDANT THAT THEY TARGET. I have created this group to not only warn Utahns, but also to gather more victims to direct to authorities and reporters. Please help to protect Utah citizens. We cannot allow one more crook in the Utah Legislature. The mob needs Morgan in Utah's Senate. Here is my Report with evidence.
https://docs.google.com/…/1yjCeWHnzWQjiKSunIOZZKMQiyeh…/editGoogle Docs - create and edit documents online, for free. Create a new document and edit with others at the same time -- from your computer, phone or tablet. Get stuff done with or without an internet connection.… ACCOUNTS.GOOGLE.COM
Larry MeyersConnor Boyack and Kera Yates Birkeland, have you seen this? Like · Reply · 1 · February 26 at 1:24pmView 3 more repliesMorgan Philpot & Rick Koerber's Legal SCAM Larry, so did you first read the link above, my report? Like · Reply · 1 · February 26 at 2:23pmMorgan Philpot & Rick Koerber's Legal SCAM So, Larry, before reading a posted document, doing your homework and research to see that there could quite possibly be some truth to my claim, your first knee-jerk reaction is to PROTECT YOUR BROTHERS? Like · Reply · 3 · February 26 at 3:49pm · Edited Write a reply... Connor Boyack Uh, I've never found a client for Morgan or Rick. Like · Reply · 2 · February 26 at 2:19pmView 2 more repliesMorgan Philpot & Rick Koerber's Legal SCAM Connor - Please do the right thing and go to all the others that you have referred and see if Morgan followed through for them. If not, direct them to this page, and ask them to contact me. I will direct them to the authorities and reporters. Thank you! Like · Reply · February 26 at 2:26pmConnor Boyack I don't lie. And you lack any evidence. Like · Reply · 1 · February 26 at 2:26pmConnor Boyack I can't go to the "others" I have referred because I haven't referred anybody. Like · Reply · 1 · February 26 at 2:28pmMorgan Philpot & Rick Koerber's Legal SCAMConnor Boyack Did you read the link above? Like · Reply · February 26 at 2:35pmJordan Parker Yes Connor, if you think you haven't reffered any clients for this man, its clearly because you did not read the link above. Please educate yourself before speaking on this topicLike · Reply · March 2 at 10:02am · EditedMorgan Philpot & Rick Koerber's Legal SCAMJordan Parker Did Connor refer you to Morgan? Like · Reply · March 2 at 10:11am Write a reply... Melanie Ogden Sorensen I know Morgan and find this very hard to believe. I don't see what proof you have against him except that you're not happy with how he took care of your case. Like · Reply · 1 · February 27 at 5:53pmMorgan Philpot & Rick Koerber's Legal SCAM He has conned many Utahns with his "pure and innocent" look, but I promise you there are more victims than just me. Please join FB group - Utah Judicial Watchdog Committee -- there is more evidence there regarding his crimes. FBI is investigating him right now and reporters. It is a fact. Like · Reply · 1 · February 27 at 5:55pmMelanie Ogden Sorensen You need to provide more proof if you are going to make accusations of this gravity. Like · Reply · February 27 at 5:55pmMorgan Philpot & Rick Koerber's Legal SCAM I have - there is another victim exposing him very soon as well. Again, evidence is at: Utah Judicial Watchdog Committee group Like · Reply · February 27 at 5:56pmPatti Smart Bateman I have a hard time believing this as well. I asked Morgan about it and he said he has a "cease and desist" order against Connie. I need to see/hear proof. I can understand being disappointed in the outcome of a case and even wanting to prove those who were trying the case were in the wrong but that doesn't necessarily make Morgan a part of a mob! Like · Reply · 2 · March 15 at 10:52amMorgan Philpot & Rick Koerber's Legal SCAM It is a coming. There are too many of us. Tribune is working on it and so are the feds. Like · Reply · March 15 at 10:54amMorgan Philpot & Rick Koerber's Legal SCAM Mormons are so good at worshiping the arm of the flesh. Like · Reply · March 15 at 10:54amPatti Smart Bateman I don't believe anything the tribune publishes! They love doing a hatchet job on conservatives! Like · Reply · March 15 at 10:54amMorgan Philpot & Rick Koerber's Legal SCAMPatti Smart BatemanOh, so you don't believe their investigation and reporting of Swallow and Shurtleff? Are you really the same woman married to Chuck Bateman, who I have good dialog with on FB? Interesting. So you probably still worship Rick Koerber too? Like · Reply · March 15 at 12:35pmMorgan Philpot & Rick Koerber's Legal SCAM Cease and desist? So I guess he thinks he can take away my First Amendment rights to free speech? I'm guessing LaVoy's family and Bundy's familiy now should receive a cease and desist from the federal government - they have no right to free speech as...See MoreLike · Reply · March 15 at 12:36pmPatti Smart BatemanMorgan Philpot & Rick Koerber's Legal SCAM...you think insulting me is going to help me want to listen to you? Like · Reply · March 15 at 2:42pmMorgan Philpot & Rick Koerber's Legal SCAM No insults here. And don't really care if you listen to me. This happens to be my group, if you feel a need to defend this Gadianton, please don't do it on my wall, you have your own. Like · Reply · 2 · March 15 at 2:44pmPatti Smart Bateman Yes, do your job! I would never take that right from you. Does freedom of speech include smearing a candidate because you disagree with an outcome? I guess it does! Like · Reply · March 15 at 2:44pmJarrell James There is evidence to support what she is claiming and the Federal and State governments have already brought charges against Rick Koerber, and not to ruin your belief in Philpot Patti but he has hired one of the sleaziest campaign mangers around Mike Melendez - get ready to see a very dirty and accusatory campaign coming from Philpot disguised as a gift from God. Like · Reply · 2 · March 16 at 2:17pm Write a reply...
Lisa Liddiard No real proof. What a joke UTAH CITIZENS - MORE ON MORGAN PHILPOT running for Utah Senate - District 14 ~ I received from Utah Court Administration a copy via Excel spreadsheets, of Morgan Philpot's cases since 2012 when he started his private practice, after two campaign losses. It was only four pages which was telling. I contacted about 90% of his clients and found not only more victims, but also discovered that since spring of 2014 (which is when he received big payoff from IHC, possibly Shurtleff and others) he has not taken on new cases. How does a father who is always traveling and playing with his children in the middle of the week, who is renting a sizable home in Alpine, who had campaign debt from two campaign losses, and is now running for Utah Senate, survive financially without clients? Does have have another job where he is paid? How has his family survived for two years now? To learn more, go to FB group - Morgan Philpot and Rick Koerber LEGAL Scam and Utah Judicial Watchdog Committee. http://archive.sltrib.com/story.php... Remember this tid bit about Rick Koerber's divorce and personal life? This Tribune report is about Rick Koerber's first wife, Michelle, and her podcast stating that Rick wanted to have more than one wife, and during their marriage was in love with their nanny, Jewel Kimber (now Franklin - not Koerber), who he is now married to. http://archive.sltrib.com/story.php... To understand more about Morgan Philpot and Rick Koerber's relationship to organized crime, you will want to join my FB group, and read information and evidence there - Utah Judicial Watchdog Committee.https://www.facebook.com/groups/1732315600337924/ Here is a reminder of who Rick Koerber is, just lost his appeal. HOW does a poor man who fought the FEDS for 5 years all of a sudden own real estate at Liberty Reef, Utah?? Where did he get the money to buy all that land? Where did Morgan Philpot get the money to pay off two campaign debts, then run again for Utah Senate? From me and Kelly Roundy's lawsuits against IHC - they got pay off money from IHC (possibly others) to stall our cases -- THAT IS HOW. Read my report. http://archive.sltrib.com/story.php...
Morgan Philpot & Rick Koerber's Legal SCAM
Continued
Re: 150 Militia Take Over Makhuer National Wildlife Preserve Headquarters
February 26 · Here is additional proof that Rick Koerber currently is Morgan Philpot's Paralegal/Law Clerk. He uses a few different alias names to include this one - here is his signature from one of my emails. Morgan first tells you about his Paralegal, Rick, never uses a last name. Then they have a conference call with you where he introduces him as "RICK", with no last name. Then when you get an email, you will see this different name -- all to distract you from the FACT that his associate who will be acting as your attorney, and writing your Complaint, etc, is the well-known ponzi scheme crook who took $48 million from elderly Utahns - Rick Koerber - who some how got a Judge to dismiss his case, but lost his appeal and now back into court. Not only is Rick committing additional fraud by acting as an attorney, when he is not, he is also in CONTEMPT of his court orders during his pending trial, Orders from US Judge Waddoups, that he has to report any employment and income, which he has not, though he continues to profit from this current scam with Morgan. C. R. Franklin Law Clerk, Litigation Support Specialist The Law Office of J. Morgan Philpot* 801-822-2978 crf@jmphilpot.com Russ Young May 26 at 6:13am Well, Morgan just took over Ammon Bundy's case so things might get a bit more interesting. 3 Likes4 CommentsLike · Comment Chronological 4 people reacted to this.
Comments
Maureen Burns Van Hoven Except most of the grifted funds have run dry. Did the Kochs agree to pay the new legal fees? Like · Reply · 1 · May 26 at 7:05am Russ Young Part time attorney and politician, 5 small kids, only one other attorney in his "office" - what could go wrong? It's a slam dunk for Ammon - I mean, if prison is Ammon's goal smile emoticon Like · Reply · 2 · May 26 at 7:10am 1 Reply Michael J Berglin yawn Like · Reply · May 26 at 7:40am Gannon Seims Look him up on fb...in trouble for some sort of Ponzi scheme. Like · Reply · May 26 at 1:17pm
Well folks, the evidence that is right in our faces leaves little to ones imagination, or is it all as we imagined, too much to be real and yet we have real American Patriots in jail and out on bail pending kangaroo trials that are months away? Were these men and women entrapped by federal conspiracy using infiltrators who could have easily been seen had anyone opened their eyes beyond the offer of “BIG BIG MONEY AND DEEP DEEP POCKETS?”
Well, where is that big money to pay for the attorneys? Or are the Patriots who have sent their grocery money and money they did not have still need to foot the bill? WELL??? These are very valid questions and reason for all to ask more questions.
WHERE DID THE 100k PLUS GO? IS THERE AN ACCOUNTING? Seems when an attorney says he is “burning the midnight oil” writing briefs and doing research then we find out he is not the one doing the work then maybe there is an accounting needed? Well, maybe Arnold's a member of the Screen Actors Guild union and his appearances fees are high? Did he sign a talent slip too? So much for the pro bono offer he gave when he "showed up" at the refuge.
We believe that the Bundy men are trapped inside this web of Federal Conspiracy and lies that has been so well orchestrated that book deals and movie deals were already laying the foundation through talent slips and film crews following this debacle from day one. We saw film crews inside with the last four, even when there was a media black out. We believe that Ammon Bundy has the best intentions in the world but fell prey to a predatory, tyrannical theater script written by the Feds.
How do we save the American Patriots reputation in all this mess? We believe it can only be saved by getting the truth out, the ties to ALL of the agencies involved in this theater and how the men and women who went to the refuge are VICTIMS of the largest Ponzi scheme to hit the American Patriots, not just Utah. Is this a game of, “We will gladly trade you the Patriot movement tomorrow for our freedom today?”. WHAT DO YOU THINK?? Before you react, do some research will you please as opinions based on one not having a clue about the facts is illiterate to debate. Facts are what give opinions weight, attacks on the facts by the uninformed is just plain “stupidity” dressed in a provocateur gown.
We are going to have more information to share, information that we have thought long and hard about researching, commenting on and sharing as we are given it and as we find it by simply looking. We do not find that any of this should be funny, though the movie would seem better played out as a comedy at this point because it is such a ridiculous mess that as serious as it is those of us finding this stuff laugh out of not knowing what else to do! THIS IS NUTS! From Deep pockets to Big mouths and Sheriff deputies pooping in holes at the Lavoy Finicum memorial site this story just keeps getting stranger by the minute. Folly of Fiction for a script entrapping innocent people into jail for the demise of the Patriots? We think yes.
Thom & Rene’
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COMING IN THE NEXT WEEK MORE FOLLY OR MORE TRUTH TO FREE THE WRONGLY CHARGED? LET THE INNOCENT GO AND JUST STOP FILM EDITING!:
And, now we see a love fest going on with some of those supporting the prisoners with accusations of infidelity, marriages destroyed by men and women “helping” in Oregon? And, the term “Christ Like” continues to be the theme? Come on folks, this has got to end. Give America back it’s dignity!
Sheriffs destroying a memorial, pooping in public to desecrate a memorial, writing their own laws and attacking innocent senior citizens? AND ALERT WE HAVE NEWS THE TRIBE IS ON THE WAY AND THEY ARE MAD AS HECK, SEEMS STEALING ARTIFACTS AND SACRED FEATHERS ANGERS THE MEDICINE MAN WHO PLACED THEM THERE...SERIOUSLY DEPUTY SHERIFF MCCLAIN? DID YOU THINK YOU COULD POOP ON THE NATIVE AMERICANS TOO? OOOPS? SHAME ON YOU, A MAN WHO ALSO HAS A FAMILY MEMORIAL ON BLM GROUND CRAPS ON THE PATRIOTS AND THE NATIVE AMERICANS? WHOO WEEEEE, THIS NEXT STORY IS GONNA BE GOOD!!
FINICUM FAMILY SAYS THE MEMORIAL SITE IS NOT A BATTLE TO FIGHT AND GET SOMEONE HURT OVER! They sent a family representative to say stand down and don't do a sit in, Lavoy would not want someone hurt over this. Choose your battles. They see the tyranny and do not want this to be something that has someone senselessly hurt. (Another attempt of the tyrannical teams efforts to draw the Patriots into a blood bath is averted!)
Family members demanding calls made to the courts and jails and public servant offices because the men are being hurt and starved, then attacks on the very support saying the jailers say they love the family but their supporters are rude? And now reports are they are being treated well and the food is better? Do these people fall for each stage of this so naively? oh man, that naive word gets us in trouble, Christ Like, is it that they are so “Christ Like” that they turn the cheek on the predators and turn their backs on their supporters? The real ones at least? (anyone see stage 2 or 3 of the psy-op here?)
In January we heard interesting witness accounts of Pete Santilli meeting with David Fry around the 14th of January, meeting with him at Santilli’s truck for 45 minutes. Those who know of Pete say he doesn’t give anyone 45 minutes of HIS time for nothing, especially while he is covering a story, or participating in it or whatever it is he is being accused of doing through the folly of theatrical script the feds call an indictment. We also know Santilli was not anywhere near John Day or heading there the day of Lavoy’s assassination, which many have said makes no sense to them. Santilli absent from the drama a good story is made of? Well, we don’t know but the question seems valid. (regardless, the first amendment is the kicker that should stop Pete’s arse from being kicked by any prosecutor. No matter what Pete was arrested for 2 year old Facebook posts and private messages and havig a big mouth while he was covering the stories. This violates EVERYTHING the first amendment stands for. We guess you have to be a thug attacking innocent people and burning police cars to go free and none of the Whistle Blowers threatened anyone or destroyed any property, not even with Pete’s mouth!)
STAY TUNED...YOU
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Re: 150 Militia Take Over Makhuer National Wildlife Preserve Headquarters
Quote:
Les Zaitz, we're going tonexpose your corruption to the co-conspirators of the world
video at link
https://www.facebook.com/joe.slideri...type=2&theater
Re: 150 Militia Take Over Makhuer National Wildlife Preserve Headquarters
EXCLUSIVE LaVoy Finicum, Bundys, Hammonds . . . Part 5
http://youtu.be/_EmasSPyyqQ
https://youtu.be/_EmasSPyyqQ
Re: 150 Militia Take Over Makhuer National Wildlife Preserve Headquarters
Re: 150 Militia Take Over Makhuer National Wildlife Preserve Headquarters
Alone on the range
Story by Matthew Piper and photos by Trent Nelson
http://photos.sltrib.com/projects/wp...finicum-14.gifTuckup, Ariz. • Her dust trail hems in five dozen cattle while Tean Finicum — pronounced Tee-Ann — rides behind them from flank to flank, driving the herd toward a dirt road that borders a low mountainside.
As her saddle-length blond braid bobs in step with her horse, the 18-year-old shouts over the wind to direct the movements of her mom, Jeanette. Together with two frantic border collies, they impress upon the cattle that the most convenient option is to mosey on forward while sneaking mouthfuls of the windswept grass.
Weekend adventurers in motorcycles and SUVs wave as they pass on the road — “There are some real-live cowgirls back there,” one will announce to the passengers of a car parked ahead.
After a few miles, Tean rides away from the herd while Jeanette continues to drawl “Heeey, cow” at its rear. She waits for them just beyond a cattle guard, demanding that they turn more than 90 degrees and begin to climb the mountain where the scrub is less dense.
They’d rather not. The last time Tean tried this, when she was by herself, the cattle refused. The whole effort, including a 45-mile drive south from the family’s home near the Utah border in Cane Beds, Ariz., had been for nothing.
This time, the dogs scurry about to browbeat the grunting insubordinates as mother and daughter turn them toward slope and sky. The herd starts and stops, starts again and stops again. Finally, deprived of an easier choice, it heads unhurriedly toward the top, from which point memory alone will lead the cattle to the higher ground’s water source.
The day’s work has been a success, and the Finicums are pleased.
But even victories like these are dampered by a recurring thought.
This was easier with Dad.
http://photos.sltrib.com/projects/wp...60521-4951.jpgTean Finicum
It was April 2014, while he was attending a conference in Salt Lake City, that LaVoy Finicum set himself down the path that would lead to his late-January death on a rural highway in eastern Oregon.
Reports of a standoff near Cliven Bundy’s southeastern Nevada ranch compelled Finicum to ditch the conference and drive to meet Bundy, who invited Finicum to ride with him the next day. Little was written about Finicum’s role in Bunkerville, but he later would become the de facto spokesman for the 41-day occupation of a federal wildlife refuge near Burns, Ore.
Those who believe the federal government’s administration of public lands amounts to tyranny regard Finicum and Bundy as martyrs for their involvement at Bunkerville and Burns.
To those who don’t, they were misguided at best, domestic terrorists at worst.
But to Tean Finicum and Arden Bundy, these men are Dad, painfully absent as the teens come of age on the rugged earth where their fathers taught them intertwining lessons about ranching and life.
Arden graduated early from Mesquite’s Virgin Valley High so he could ranch full-time this spring. His days are bookended by 7 a.m. and 7 p.m. feedings of the 100 or so cattle kept on the family’s homestead, a green swath of grass and melon farm sandwiched between the muddy Virgin River and rusty bench of Virgin Mountain.
Tean says her shortest days were 12 hours and her longest were 20 before she walked at graduation May 26 — four months to the day that news of her father’s death spread while her family sat in the same gym to watch her play basketball.
It was her dream to one day take over the ranch, but not for another 10 years or so.
“I’m constantly working, everywhere I go.”
Working, both Arden and Tean, without the blessing of their fathers’ shared adversary: the federal government.
‘If I stop, there’s no point’
http://photos.sltrib.com/projects/wp...414-7052-1.jpgArden Bundy at the family ranch in Bunkerville, Nev.
Arden speaks with his hands up, as though conducting the steady, deliberate rhythm of his words.
“My dad never really told me, ‘You’re going to take care of the ranch,’” he says. “But I felt like I was the best fit.”
He’s stocky, powerful enough that in his first year wrestling, he reached the state quarterfinals at 220 pounds, and his belt buckle reads “All-Around Cowboy.” He says he can teach you to rope in a morning.
Even if his four brothers weren’t behind bars awaiting a February trial with his father, Arden says he was always likeliest to inherit the operation as the youngest Bundy, unburdened by other family and business obligations.
Scenes from the Bundy ranch
A dog seeks his attention while he talks, keeping the weight off its wounded front leg. Arden reckons that Spur, at 4, is getting old to be a cow dog, but he’s seen him drag a coyote by the throat after it came for their chickens.
“He don’t put up with that.”
He expected to be arrested when he turned 18 at the end of March, and he says he was prepared to die in 2014. He likens their success retaking their cattle at a Bureau of Land Management impound site, when federal agents chose to stand down as both sides trained guns on the other, to when “a bunch of podunk farmers came together and kicked [British] ass.”
“Something big is going to come out of this,” he says. “If I stop ranching, there’s no point in fighting.”
At one point during his morning feed, Arden stops the loader to cast a skeptical eye at a helicopter passing overhead.
But as much as his performance recalls the seriousness and bravado of his father’s public appearances, he is still the “baby of the family,” says his mom, Carol. A teenager.
]http://photos.sltrib.com/projects/wp...79-200x300.jpg
Carol Bundy
“He still wants to stay out late and hang out with his friends,” she says. He enjoys Snapchat, and ribbing family security guard Jonathon “Skipper” Speece. This year, he took dates to three different proms, and after he leads reporters on a tour of the mountain, he talks on the phone about a custom bumper for his truck and later will post a photo of it to Instagram.
His friends from school, who know little about ranching, think his lifestyle is a “rotten deal,” he says. And, sometimes, he agrees.
Speece says Cliven’s arrest at a Portland airport in early February — days after he’d attended Finicum’s Kanab funeral with Arden by his side — took a toll on Arden. The teenager no longer wakes up to find his father reading scriptures, or preparing “crazy-looking” breakfasts that always included meat, potatoes and Tabasco. Most days now, he works alone. But he remains faithful to his father’s philosophy.
He points the way to a spring that he calls Rabbit (on Google Earth, it’s Government Spring), where he snaps some buds off a small bush and rubs them between his fingers to create a powerful fragrance. Grazing replenishes this vegetation, he says. Without the cattle, he says, it would die.
When a cow shepherds calves away from a passing car, Arden says their recent birth is proof the cattle have everything they need to survive. “They’re happy,” he says, or else they wouldn’t have bred.
Federal prosecutors have deemed the Bundys’ ranching methods “unconventional if not bizarre.” The cattle aren’t vaccinated. They’re rarely branded. Some wander as far as 50 miles from the Bundy estate, onto golf courses and Interstate 15, until they’re trapped by bait for sale or slaughter.
This draws an eye roll from Arden.
Carol Bundy — speaking beneath a painting in which her husband holds an American flag in his outstretched right arm, his hat held across his chest as he bows his head reverently — says their way of ranching is in line with “the custom and the culture of the West.”
“They’re wild. That’s what I raise. Wild cows. But that doesn’t make them bad. That doesn’t make me bad.”
http://local.sltrib.com/online/finicum-bundy/
Continued. . . . . .
Re: 150 Militia Take Over Makhuer National Wildlife Preserve Headquarters
Alone on the range
Story by Matthew Piper and photos by Trent Nelson
http://photos.sltrib.com/projects/wp...finicum-14.gif
‘A very difficult situation’
[COLOR=rgba(0, 0, 0, 0.65098)]http://photos.sltrib.com/projects/wp...40-200x300.jpgJeanette Finicum’s favorite photo with LaVoy
[/COLOR]
Jeanette Finicum met LaVoy at a St. George barn dance, where dancers changed partners each time a bell rang. When the music stopped, she was with LaVoy.
He told her he’d gotten a flat and had to hike to the dance, and asked her for a ride. She had thought it might be a line, but, truly, he’d had a flat.
“I instantly was attracted to him,” she said. “He was just a sweet man. Very polite. Very kind.”
That was 1992. By 1993, they were married, living in a small white house surrounded by a redrock panorama on the Finicum family’s Cane Beds homestead. Together they had nine children from previous marriages — though four lived in Provo with LaVoy’s first wife — and they added two more with Tean and an adopted boy, Mitch.
LaVoy had designed his LV bar brand, now synonymous with the broader movement, when he was only 8, but jobs in foster care took them to Albuquerque, N.M., and Paulden, Ariz., before he ever owned his own ranch.
They returned to Cane Beds in 2010, when they purchased 20 head and took over a BLM grazing permit 45 miles south that was in the name of LaVoy’s father, David.
These 17,000 acres, named Tuckup, are marked by dramatic elevation change, from desert shrubland to green high country, about a dozen miles north of the Grand Canyon’s Toroweap Outlook.
The sunbaked Arizona Strip was long considered uninhabitable by white explorers until it was settled by Mormon ranchers in the latter half of the 19th century. Eventually, it became home to 100,000 cattle, as well as untold sheep. Today, the BLM permits 15,000 cattle, and no sheep, and claims good relationships with its permit holders on the Strip.
All except one. Last August, the BLM says it discovered Finicum’s cattle at Tuckup two months earlier than his permit allows. He was directed to settle the matter at his local office, but the cattle continued to graze until October, when he was found to be in willful trespass and fined $12,000.
Jeanette says it wasn’t an act of disobedience but a standard practice — “not a big deal” — that got them punished. She believes they were under the microscope after her husband had decried federal oversight of public lands while touting his novel about a survivalist patriarch who defends his family from corrupt government in an end-times scenario.
In April, Arizona Strip District Manager Timothy Burke said he had yet to talk to the Finicums, delaying because “it is a very difficult situation.”
Now, the Finicums’ permitted season has expired, the cattle remain, and the fine still is unpaid. “We’re pretty much keeping them here year-round now,” says Jeanette, who adds that she received a call from the BLM the week prior. She has hired an attorney, she says, but she hasn’t made any final decisions about what to do next.
Burke’s office said in a statement at the end of May that it is “working through a standard administrative process to find a resolution to this issue.”
The Bundys, meanwhile, are a more pressing concern for the BLM. Conservation groups say their cattle still imperil the desert tortoise, and Nevada Sen. Harry Reid says the Bundys have damaged Joshua trees — abundant on the Gold Butte landscape, where bright flowers dot vegetation that has an otherwise surreally ancient appearance.
http://photos.sltrib.com/projects/wp...60414-7553.jpgCattle at the Bundy ranch
The BLM contracted with Utah companies for its ill-fated roundup and sale of Bundy’s cattle in 2014, leading to a picket of the R Livestock Connection in Monroe and opposition from Utah lawmakers and county law enforcers.
BLM Southern District acting District Manager Erick Kurkowski said in an email to The Salt Lake Tribune that there “are no plans for a gather at this time as we continue to cooperate with the Department of Justice on the ongoing legal matter.”
Speece, meanwhile, waits at the ready to call for help if the BLM returns. Arden believes that if the feds try again, more than 1,000 supporters will join him in opposition.
“It’d be a repeat of 2014.”
‘It was going to be our life’
http://photos.sltrib.com/projects/wp...60521-5901.jpgJeanette and Tean Finicum on the range near Tuweep, Ariz.
The Bundys are old hands at this, having defied the federal government since Cliven decided not to renew his grazing permit in 1993.
For the Finicums, this is new.
On New Year’s Eve 2015, they camped at Tuckup after a day of gathering and branding. Jeanette, LaVoy and son Thomas slept inside a tent, while Tean curled up outside with a puppy in her sleeping bag to keep warm.
The next day, when they got home, LaVoy got a call.
“Sure, I’ll go,” they heard him say. “I can drive. I’ve got my new truck.”
Taking with him the clothes he had on and, presumably, the bugout bag with food, water and an extra set of clothes that he had in case of a flat, he left for eastern Oregon to protest the return to prison of ranchers Dwight and Steven Hammond, ordered to serve the remainder of mandatory minimum sentences for setting fires on public lands.
He’d just bought Jeanette a new horse, a jacket to match his own, a slicker and a cap. They were about to become empty-nesters, and he figured they’d spend more time out at Tuckup.
"It was going to be our life,” Jeanette says. “We were just at the point where we could retire in a few years from doing foster care and just run the ranch.”
Wife and daughter say they believed he would come back after the protest in Burns. They knew nothing of plans to occupy the nearby bird refuge, though they would visit. He hoped they’d stay, but his brother Guy convinced him that it was best if they returned to Cane Beds.
Finicum’s parting plea with Tean was for her to take care of the ranch.
“You know what to do,” he said. “Until I get home, it’s your job.”
<font color="#1B1B1B"><span style="font-family: -apple-system-font"><strong>http://youtu.be/DWkcCJjhZIk
]http://photos.sltrib.com/projects/wp...41-200x300.jpg
Jeanette Finicum
They learned of his death at Fredonia High when Jeanette received a call from the wife of Ammon Bundy, Lisa, who was “screaming and crying and yelling over and over again that they killed LaVoy,” Jeanette says.
They were still trying to verify Lisa’s report hours later, but police and hospital staff wouldn’t confirm it — still a sore spot for Jeanette.
“That was pretty tough. We soon learned we had to get another layer of skin. A few layers.”
They’ve since encountered people who’d like them to push their own agendas, she says, and seen reports that they say are factually inaccurate. But they’ve had support, too. About 70 people greeted Jeanette when she brought the body home for burial. Guests painted the Finicums’ chicken coop, tilled their garden and planted crops. A pile of letters sits at the foot of their couch, and Jeanette unfolds a sketch of her husband with the words, “The salt of the Earth that did not lose its savor.”
Earlier this spring, Arden Bundy came to help rope cattle and stayed for a night of games that reminded the Finicums of happier times, when the family gathered to fiercely compete over Rook, Dominion and Settlers of Catan.
This day, a whistling wind fills the silences, and Tean sits quietly as her mother talks, occasionally correcting small details about her childhood.
Her father put her on a horse at 2, Jeanette says. At 12, she saved $800 to buy her own cow, and she was taught to apply a brand, clip the ears and castrate young bulls. She home-schooled while she was in elementary school so she could help her father scout available ranches, and later again in high school so she could join him at work.
“I’ve always been his right-hand man, from the beginning,” she says.
Now, caring for the cattle that her father prized is both a reminder of his love and his absence.
“The ranch, I guess, was more something I did because I loved him," she says, "and I loved to spend time with him.”
mpiper@sltrib.com
Twitter: @matthew_piper
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Sheriff Dave Ward admits to premeditated murder of LaVoy Finicum
Sheriff Ward admits to premeditated murder of LaVoy Finicum
http://youtu.be/vwWkh6p3le0
https://youtu.be/vwWkh6p3le0
Re: Sheriff Dave Ward admits to premeditated murder of LaVoy Finicum
http://www.oregonlive.com/oregon-standoff/2016/06/judge_dismisses_one_of_the_gun.html
Judge dismisses one of the gun charges against Ammon Bundy, 7 co-defendants
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A federal judge has dismissed the charge of using and carrying firearms in the course of a crime of violence against Ammon Bundy and seven co-defendants, finding the underlying conspiracy charge doesn't meet the legal definition of a "crime of violence.''
The ruling dismissing Count 3 in the federal indictment is the first major win for the defense in the pending case stemming from the 41-day armed takeover of the Malheur National Wildlife Refuge.
U.S. District Judge Anna J. Brown issued a 16-page written ruling Friday afternoon, finding that the umbrella charge of conspiring to impede federal officers from doing their work at the refuge through "intimidation, threats or force'' doesn't necessarily mean that the conspiracy must involve the "threatened use of physical force'' against a person or property.
She noted that the word "intimidation,'' for example, could apply to threats of nonviolent harm to property.
Further, a "threat'' under the conspiracy allegation could involve the blackmailing of a federal officer to prevent the federal officer from doing his or her federal duties -- a threat that doesn't necessarily require "threatened use of physical force,'' the judge wrote.
So, if the underlying conspiracy charge isn't restricted to a "crime of violence'' but encompasses a "broader swath'' of conduct, then the count that charged eight refuge occupiers with using or carrying firearms in the course of "a crime of violence" should be thrown out, the judge ruled.
Defense lawyer Per C. Olson had argued in legal briefs and oral arguments for dismissal of Count 3 on behalf of his client, David Fry, and the others charged.
Olson told the court that the government wrongly applied a definition of "intimidation'' from a federal bank robbery charge to the conspiracy charge. He argued that prosecutors can't "lift a definition'' from another statute and "shoehorn it'' into this charge without any case law to base it on.
Assistant U.S. Attorney Ethan Knight had conceded in a hearing that Count 3 presented "a close call'' for the court.
But Knight argued that the conspiracy very much represented a violent crime and should be left up to a jury to decide, perhaps with a special jury instruction, asking whether jurors believe there was a threat of violence or physical force involved in the conspiracy alleged.
Brown said she was bound by 9th U.S. Circuit Court of Appeals rulings. A crime of violence is defined as any offense that is a felony and "by its nature involves a substantial risk that physical force against the person or property of another may be used.''
In addition to Ammon Bundy and Fry, the other defendants charged with Count 3 were Bundy's older brother, Ryan Bundy, Jon Ritzheimer, Ryan Payne, Brian Cavalier, Jason Patrick and Sean Anderson.
Co-defendant Corey Lequieu has already accepted a negotiated deal, pleading guilty to the conspiracy charge last month with the understanding that the other charges, including Count 3, would be dismissed against him at his August sentencing.
Count 3 would have carried a mandatory minimum sentence of five years in prison, and a maximum sentence of life. If a defendant had been convicted for using and carrying a firearm in the course of a violent crime, the sentence would have to run consecutive to sentences imposed on any other counts.
The remaining counts have less severe penalties, Olson pointed out. The federal conspiracy charge carries a maximum sentence of six years with no minimum and possessing a firearm in a federal facility carries a five-year maximum sentence with no minimum.
"So, with regard to those defendants who were charged in Count 3, this ruling greatly reduces their overall exposure to prison in the event of convictions,'' Olson said Friday.
A trial is set for Sept. 7. The next status hearing in the case is Wednesday.
-- Maxine Bernstein
mbernstein@oregonian.com
503-221-8212
@maxoregonian
Re: Sheriff Dave Ward admits to premeditated murder of LaVoy Finicum
