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Photo of the obliterated serial number on a machine gun that FBI agents seized from Michael Emry's travel trailer in John Day in May, according to prosecutors. (FBI photo) -
A belt of blank .50-caliber shells seized from Michael Emry during a federal search warrant in May, according to federal prosecutors. (FBI photo)
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At the same time federal agents say Michael Emry illegally possessed a machine gun, he also had this blasting cap, a detonator for a bomb, according to federal prosecutors. (FBI photo) -
The .50-caliber gun that FBI agents seized from Michael Emry's travel trailer in John Day in May after serving a search warrant at the location, according to federal court records. (Courtesy of FBI)
By Maxine Bernstein | The Oregonian/OregonLive Β Β January 23, 2017 at 4:31 PM
Michael Emry pleaded guilty in federal court Monday to possessing a fully automatic .50-caliber machine gun that he brought to Oregon in a van loaned to him by Ammon Bundy, one of the leaders in the armed takeover of the Malheur National Wildlife Refuge.
Prosecutors will recommend he spend two and a half years in prison, under the negotiated plea deal. He's scheduled to be sentenced on April 6 in U.S. District Court in Eugene.
The 54-year-old, according to a federal prosecutor, admitted he stole the machine gun from a man in Idaho, obliterated its serial number and traveled with it from Idaho to Oregon in December 2015 in Bundy's van. He, Bundy, Ryan Payne and other militants stayed in a house in Burns at that time, according to the prosecutor.
On Jan. 11, Emry, of John Day, informed a Deschutes County sheriff's deputy at a law enforcement checkpoint at the Burns airport that there was a .50-caliber belt-fed machine gun on the refuge, according to a court filing by Assistant U.S. Attorney Nathan Lichvarchik. The deputy perceived Emry's statement as an attempt to intimidate law enforcement during the occupation of the federal wildlife refuge in eastern Oregon.
A confidential source told the FBI that it was a good thing law enforcement seized the machine gun from Emry, because Oregon standoff defendant Darryl Thorn, charged with federal conspiracy and other misdemeanor charges in the refuge takeover, had wanted another refuge occupier to retrieve the machine gun from Emry and had asked for training on how to use it, the federal prosecutor wrote.
Before FBI agents executed the search warrant on Emry's trailer in John Day in May, Emry had been negotiating to sell the Browning M2 machine gun in Oregon to an undercover law enforcement officer who posed as a convicted felon and captain of a Texas militia group, Lichvarchik wrote in a court filing.
Emry told agents that the firearm was fully automatic and could fire between 550 and 650 rounds per minute, according to federal prosecutors.
A possession of a machine gun conviction could bring a maximum sentence of 10 years in prison, a $10,000 fine, and three years of supervised release.
Bundy was acquitted of federal conspiracy and weapons charges after a five-week trial in Portland last fall. Payne, who pleaded guilty to the conspiracy charge, awaits sentencing. Emry was never charged with conspiracy stemming from the refuge occupation.
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-- Maxine Bernstein
[email protected]
503-221-8212
@maxoregonian
