The cabin that Kenneth Medenbach placed on property belonging to the U.S. Bureau of Land Management in Josephine County in 2015. (Federal court exhibit)
BY MAXINE BERNSTEIN The Oregonian/OregonLive May 23, 2017 at 9:01 AM
EUGENE – Public lands occupier Kenneth Medenbach wound up before a judge again Monday and admitted that he violated the condition of his probation for a 2016 illegal camping conviction by going, of all places, back to federal court.
But this federal court happened to be in Nevada, and it featured co-defendants of the Bundy family, kindred spirits who have earned national attention for fighting federal ownership of public land.
Medenbach’s lawyer Matthew Schindler said he had never in his career heard of a defendant accused of a probation violation for going to court.
“He didn’t have permission to go to a federal criminal trial?” Schindler told U.S. District Judge Michael J. McShane. “Why?”
The back-and-forth arguments between Medenbach, his lawyer, the prosecutor and the judge touched on the Constitution, land rights, federal agencies and militias.
Medenbach has a long protest history, starting with his 1988 construction of some cabins and an outhouse on five acres of land he bought for $700 northeast of Crescent without getting permits from Klamath County.
He’s currently appealing his April 2016 conviction and sentence for occupying federal public land in Josephine County as part of a mining protest. He set up an illegal cabin on U.S. Bureau of Land Management property near Galice and was sentenced to six months in jail, time served, plus five years of probation. As a condition of probation, he must seek permission before traveling out of state.
He was acquitted in October of conspiracy and theft for using a government truck for his role in the 41-day occupation of the Malheur National Wildlife Refuge in Harney County last year. Among other things, video captured Medenbach replacing the main refuge sign and truck decals with “Harney County Resource Center” signs and logos, and drilling a sign into the branch office door of the U.S. Bureau of Land Management that read “Closed Permanently.”
His court appearance this time stemmed from the cabin construction near Galice.
He had asked a probation officer for permission to attend the trial in Nevada but was denied.
Medenbach went anyway and was arrested on April 12 outside the federal courthouse in Las Vegas.
Medenbach spent a week in custody in Nevada before McShane ordered his release on May 4, over prosecutors’ objections. He was placed on electronic monitoring once he returned to Oregon.
On Monday, federal prosecutors sought more stringent conditions during a probation violation hearing.
The judge explained that probation officers in Oregon can’t supervise offenders when they’re in another state. Schindler quipped that the federal officers had no trouble locating his client in Nevada.
Assistant U.S. Attorney Douglas W. Fong said the travel restriction is standard for people on probation and Medenbach could have appealed to the judge before simply ignoring it.
Fong further asked the court not to allow Medenbach into Grant County without permission. He cited letters Medenbach has sent to the Bureau of Land Management and U.S. Forest Service, ordering them to “cease and desist” activity against the Grant County Public Forest Commission or else “We the People” would form a “well-regulated militia” to respond.
Fong said he views the letters as a “threat against the government,” given Medenbach’s failure to recognize its jurisdiction over public lands, “regardless of how many times he’s been told.”
“Someday, somebody is going to get hurt because of what Mr. Medenbach is trying to do,” Fong said. “We’re trying to prevent something further, something bigger, something more serious from going on.”
Schindler called the prosecutor’s argument for keeping his client out of an entire county in Oregon weak and unwarranted.
“We don’t get to invent a terrorist from a camping case, no matter how much they dislike his viewpoint,” Schindler told the court.
The judge addressed Medenbach directly.
“Are you planning for a regulated militia in Grant County?” McShane asked.
“That’s the option I have,” Medenbach replied.
McShane asked if Medenbach realizes that others consider his promise to raise a militia as threatening.
Medenbach said he took those words straight from the U.S. Constitution and he called a militia “a deterrent to an oppressive government.”
“We have a well-regulated militia, and we haven’t done anything except protest,” Medenbach told the court.
As Medenbach launched into his familiar challenge of a federal judge’s oath of office, McShane cut him off, saying he wasn’t there for a lecture on the Constitution.
“Let’s be realistic. Let’s be men of honor,” McShane said. “You say, ‘We the People.’ I say, ‘A bunch of guys with guns.’ If the Constitution simply allowed any group who has a grievance with the government to act with firepower that just becomes Armageddon at some point.”
The judge told Medenbach it takes a “huge amount of arrogance to believe you are ‘We the People.”’
Medenbach didn’t let that sit. “It’s just a deterrent to oppressive government. That’s what happened at Sugar Pine mine and it worked. …Things got a little bit more out of character in Bunkerville.”
In spring 2015, during the Sugar Pine Mine protests, Medenbach had built his small cabin along a nearby BLM road. Federal officials said they asked Medenbach to take down the structure several times, but he repeatedly refused.
His protest came as a group of armed activists from the Oath Keepers and other groups gathered at the Sugar Pine Mine, a small gold mine in southern Oregon after the owner sought support in a dispute with the BLM over mining rights. The mine owners later reached an agreement with the BLM and the protesters left.
The judge acknowledged that many people assume “the worst” about Medenbach, partly because of his associations.
“Some of it is unfair,” McShane said. “Some of it, I think, you likely enjoy.”
The judge ordered Medenbach to remain on home detention and electronic monitoring for another two months at his home in Crescent.
Medenbach must continue to seek permission to travel out of state in the future, the judge said. Medenbach told the court he would like to return to Nevada to attend future Bunkerville trials of the Bundys. He also wants to attend his sister’s memorial in Montana and travel to California for a wood-carving job.
He won’t be allowed to enter any federal lands, offices, compounds or parking lots owned or leased by the U.S. Bureau of Land Management, U.S. Forest Service, U.S. Fish and Wildlife Service or National Park Service without prior approval.
The judge also directed Medenbach to address any protest letters to two designated special agents at the Bureau of Land Management and Forest Service agencies, and not to any other employee.
Schindler had challenged the restriction, saying the government shouldn’t restrict Medenbach’s freedom of speech just because the federal agencies “don’t like the tone of his letters.”
The judge also raised Medenbach’s monthly restitution payments from $25 to $75, to pay off his $2,506 restitution.
“If you can travel to Nevada,” McShane said, “…you need to start paying regularly.”
But the judge didn’t go along with the prosecutor’s requested ban on travel to Grant County.
“I think a restriction from Grant County is not reasonably related to the crime committed,” McShane said.
