FILE – This Jan. 27, 2016, file photo provided by the Multnomah County Sheriff’s Office, shows Ryan Bundy. Bundy and his brother, Ammon Bundy, are being transferred from a Portland, Ore., jail to Nevada Wednesday, Nov. 2, 2016, where they will be tried early next year on charges stemming from a 2014 standoff with federal agents near their father’s ranch.(Multnomah County Sheriff via AP, File)
By Jenny Wilson Las Vegas Review-Journal April 25, 2017 – 5:12 pm
Ryan Bundy, a son of embattled rancher Cliven Bundy who is incarcerated pending trial on conspiracy charges, has sued the federal government.
In a lawsuit filed Monday in the U.S. District Court for Nevada in Las Vegas, Bundy challenges the constitutionality of prison policies and alleges deprivation of rights after he was punished for refusing to obey those policies.
Bundy was transferred to prison in Nevada last fall after he was acquitted of conspiring to stage an armed takeover of a national wildlife refuge in Oregon. He is scheduled to stand trial later this year on separate federal conspiracy charges that result from an armed standoff near his father’s ranch in Bunkerville in April 2014.
“Plaintiff Bundy has been forced and threatened to undergo oppressive, intrusive, and unlawful body cavity searches multiple times per day where his clothing is removed, where his genitals are or would be exposed to Defendant Doe’s during these multifarious and nonconsensual intrusions against his fourth, fifth, eight and fourteenth amendment rights,” Bundy, who is representing himself, wrote in the lawsuit.
“Plaintiff Bundy has been forced and threatened to bend over and expose his anus by spreading his butt cheeks wide open while Defendant Doe’s peer up into Mr. Bundy’s rear body cavity hundreds of times,” he wrote.
The constitutionality of prison strip searches has been litigated extensively. In such cases, the courts generally are concerned with how to balance the prison’s interest in maintaining security with a detainee’s Fourth Amendment rights against unreasonable searches and seizures.
In 2012, a divided U.S. Supreme Court upheld prison strip searches of detainees arrested for minor offenses like traffic violations. Bundy is charged with multiple felonies.
The issue generally causes split decisions, but since 1979, courts consistently have upheld blanket strip search policies for pretrial detainees.
“On or around March 20, 2017, Plaintiff Bundy refused to undergo any further strip/body cavity searches imposed upon his person,” Bundy wrote in his filing. He said prison employees “continue to ‘punish’” his decision to refuse to be strip searched by “keeping him locked down in disciplinary segregation for twenty-four hours per day, with no opportunity for meaningful daily exercise.”
Bundy acknowledges in his filing that prison officials offered to transport him to a hearing on the constitutionality of strip searches.
But, in a convoluted sentence, he seems to claim that is unconstitutional, because he would have to be strip searched to attend the administrative grievance hearing.
He says that while in disciplinary segregation, he has been deprived a working toilet, toilet paper, a pencil and paper and thus has “no way to prepare for his own defense against the Government.”
“As of April 18, 2017, Plaintiff Bundy has been in “the hole” for approximately (40) days,” he said in his filing.
Bundy lists United States Inc. as one of the defendants in his lawsuit, choosing to refer to the federal government as a corporation. He is seeking roughly $35 million in damages from a multitude of defendants, who include the Corrections Corporation of America, Nevada Southern Detention Center Warden Charlotte Collins and a number of federal employees whose names were not listed in the filing.
Contact Jenny Wilson at [email protected] or 702-384-8710. Follow @jennydwilson on Twitter.
That picture is Ammon not Ryan.
No that is Ryan, ryan has the lowered lip. Ammon is the one that gets on the phone from time to time
It is definitely Ammon facing forward
I hope he filed a Title 42 action and not just name the Federal Govt or USA inc but anyone who has a hand in his deprivation of rights including but not limited to the Judge in this case, prosecutors, persons involved with the jail, and the FBI and any other arresting officer. Every one of those folks has a duty to obey the constitution and honor their oaths by doing something like the Warden could and can made better arrangements for them or to begin with a grand jury proceeding. (not sure if they had one or not) Right there is grounds for their immediate release.. What these men need is a constitutionalist and a lawyer who will follow instructions to the letter and not care about what the feds do. An attorney can fight back. Withholding proper materials to present a defense is wrong period. Just my thoughts on a portion of this messed up issue. May the Republic stand and be reinstated !!! ( we are supposed to be the USA not USA inc.)
The torture and persecution of American patriots being held as political prisoners appears to be a dark boding for the future of our entire nation. The people have a right to an inheritance of liberty and God will not be mocked. Even the most vie criminals in US prison institutions are not being treated so inhumanely. May the records bear witness to the debauchery of our system of government and testify to one and all of the absolute necessity of standing up against this tyranny now before the entire country ends up in a communist-style nationwide Gulag in chains
People you need to flood, twitter, the white house, facebook with all and as much info on this misdeed of our men of this country just for standing on the Constitution.
I hope Ryan sues them until they beg for mercy. Then I hope they are all brought up on charges for cruel and unusual punishment which all of these for profit prisons are guilty of and so are the judges that deny bail. I am sure the Las Vegas Review Journal doesn’t care to report the truth about the whole situation since they are part of the corporate whore media complex that lies about virtually everything. I will point out for the record however that Ryan like all the others was denied bail even though he was already acquitted on all the trumped up charges related to the Oregon occupation. So what we have here is an innocent man who has already been held in a horrible, abusive, prison system for over 15 months and is still being denied bail. He is being treated like a hardened convicted murderer in a super max prison when he is actually a peaceful, honorable, good, American man that deserves respect and admiration. Being held for nearly a year and a half without bail in itself is a flagrant and egregious abuse of power and completely unjust and unconstitutional. The government should not be allowed to hold people like this for this long when they have not done anything wrong and have not been found guilty of anything. That is just in your face tyranny right there and it makes me sick to my stomach to see the government do it and see the so called media ignore it. How damned long is he supposed to wait? Can the government delay its case for 2 years? Three years? Five? How long until it is too long, how long until we admit it is prison without trial that we are really dealing with here? What if he grows old and dies in jail waiting for trial? How long is too long dammit? My answer to that is simple anyone, charged with a crime should have an opportunity to post bail and be released until trial unless real tangible evidence can be presented that they pose a flight risk or a real danger to society. Ryan Bundy like all the other political prisoners does not pose a flight risk or a danger to society at all and anyone who says he does is a damned liar. I support Ryan’s lawsuit against this ridiculously corrupt and abusive prison system and so called justice system. It is shockingly shameful that we Americans have allowed this kind of thing to happen and have allowed our prisons to be turned into a for profit enterprise. Shameful we have allowed it.
So sorry ! This is not what I searved my country country for this type of justice but truth will prevail.
Jay McDonald, all former soldiers and those who have served in the military need to wake up that this is not the country they thought they were defending. I wrote to Rep Chris Stewart of Utah about how they are treating Ryan and his staff offered to meet with me on Monday. I am sure they are going to cite these court cases upholding strip searches. My response is that the courts are wrong and the congress needs to write new legislation to get this corrected. The accused should not be detained unless they are charged with a capital offense. Ryan told me when I visited him that most of the Bill of Rights are about the accused, not about prison staff security, not about government convenience or delay in trial due to a complex case. No, it is not about the accuser, it is about the accused and their rights. Why? Because the government is the main accuser in this country and they are the ones most likely to abuse their power.
The other thing to keep in mind is that at the Pahrump prison, all contact with prisoners are through computer screens, impossible to pass contraband making strip searches even more egregious and unjustified.