A judge Thursday ordered Oregon standoff defendant Jake Edward Ryan of Montana to remain in custody pending trial, citing concerns that Ryan ducked a federal warrant for weeks and was found hiding with weapons when arrested.
Jake Edward Ryan, 27 Ryan been sought by federal authorities for more than two weeks on an indictment in the Jan. 2 takeover of the Malheur National Wildlife Refuge. He was found Tuesday, sleeping in a stranger's shed in rural Clark County.
A homeowner called 911 to report a trespasser on his 100-acre property and a local officer found Ryan asleep in a shed there with a loaded .45-caliber handgun and several knives, Assistant U.S. Attorney Craig Gabriel said.
Ryan's court-appointed lawyer Jesse Merrithew urged the court to allow Ryan to return home to his parents in Plains, Montana.
Sanders County Sheriff Tom Rummel supports a release plan that would allow Ryan to return to Montana pending trial and "recognizes he's sticking his neck out,'' said Merrithew, who spoke to the sheriff before court. Ryan has no prior criminal history, the lawyer said.
The sheriff told him, Merrithew said, "If (Ryan) ran, he would track him down himself.''
But the federal prosecutor cautioned the court about Rummel.
"The sheriff in Montana is a sheriff who is not entirely cooperative with federal law enforcement,'' Gabriel said. He's a sheriff who couldn't locate Ryan in the four weeks since his indictment, the prosecutor added.
Ryan, 27, entered not guilty pleas to a three-count indictment. He's charged with federal conspiracy to impede officers at the federal wildlife refuge outside Burns, possession of a firearm or dangerous weapon in a federal facility and depredation of government property. He's accused of assisting co-defendant Sean Anderson in digging a large trench on an archaeological site at the refuge considered sacred to the Burns Paiute Tribe.
Ryan had thought federal authorities had promised that those who left the refuge wouldn't face arrest and so he was "understandably distrustful of the federal government'' once he learned he faced federal indictment, his lawyer said. He was concerned about his personal safety and the consequences he'd face and didn't surrender, Merrithew conceded.
"He was just plain scared,'' his lawyer said.
But Merrithew argued that his client also didn't pursue a "more dangerous path'' as encouraged to by a "fringe element'' to provoke the federal government into a standoff in Montana.
Ryan "just went peacefully'' once he was found in Clark County, Merrithew said.
Now that Ryan is more fully aware of the allegations he faces, he's intent on challenging the case in court, the defense attorney said.
Gabriel said Ryan actively participated in guard duty at the refuge. When he arrived at the eastern Oregon refuge in January, Ryan brought four firearms – a .45-caliber semiautomatic pistol, a Remington 870 tactical shotgun, a .45-caliber 1911 style semi-automatic pistol and a .45-caliber compact pistol, Gabriel said.
Ryan also was seen on video armed with the weapons, Gabriel said.
After the FBI ordered refuge occupiers to leave following the Jan. 26 arrest of the occupation leaders and police shooting of occupation spokesman Robert "LaVoy" Finicum, Ryan stayed for two more days, Gabriel said.
He dug two trenches for fortification, the prosecutor said.
Over the course of 26 hours, FBI negotiators were on the phone with Ryan to convince him to leave the refuge.
When he finally did go on Jan. 28, Gabriel said, Ryan removed three other firearms – two .223-caliber assault rifles and a .45-caliber long Colt handgun – as well as a tactical vest and placed them in a trailer in the nearby campground called The Narrows.
Back in Montana, after Ryan learned federal agents had seized the weapons from the trailer, Ryan went to law enforcement in Sanders County and asked to file a stolen weapons report against the FBI, Gabriel said.
Since his March 8 indictment, "despite vigilant efforts by the FBI in Montana, they could not find him,'' Gabriel told the judge.
Sheriff Rummel posted on his office Facebook page in late March that local authorities were working to encourage a peaceful resolution to Ryan's arrest. He also wrote that he didn't think Ryan was in Sanders County.
On March 23 Sanders wrote, "There is a misconception that Sanders County is teaming with FBI agents bent on taking Jake Ryan into custody. That is a lie. There is not one FBI agent in the county, and the vast majority of my correspondence with them has been by phone. The FBI has also reiterated that it is not their purpose or intent to aggravate this situation. Their goal is the same as mine, that this situation be resolved in a rational, peaceful manner.''
Some of Ryan's relatives were involved in the 2014 standoff with federal officers outside the Cliven Bundy ranch in Nevada, and his parents have expressed very strong anti-government views, Gabriel said.
If released, the prosecutor said he feared Ryan would go underground and that police might not be as fortunate as this time in finding and arresting him peacefully.
As FBI agents transported Ryan to the downtown Portland jail on Tuesday, he told the agents that he couldn't believe they could work "for such a tyrannical government,'' Gabriel said.
Merrithew countered that Ryan's anti-government political views shouldn't be the basis for his detention. He said Ryan's parents had encouraged him to fight the case in Oregon.
U.S. Magistrate Judge Paul Papak said Ryan's political beliefs have no influence on his decision. "I'm looking at your conduct,'' the judge told him.
The fact that Ryan stayed at the refuge after most of the other occupiers had left, was involved in armed guard duty while there and didn't surrender to authorities for weeks on a federal warrant convinced Papak that Ryan needed to be detained as a flight risk and danger to the community.
Earlier Thursday, Ryan's mother, Roxanna, hand-delivered statements to the local paper, the Clark Ford Valle Press, on behalf of her and her husband, according to its editor, Trip Burns.
Burns shared them with The Oregonian/OregonLive. Ryan's father, Dan Ryan, wrote, "Maybe if more of us were like my son Jake who actually committed to stay at the Malheur Refuge to try and make a difference, some corrupt power seekers could be put behind bars where they belong and some honest family men, who have done no harm to anyone could go home and raise their families.''
-- Maxine Bernstein
mbernstein@oregonian.com
503-221-8212
@maxoregonian