Ken Medenbach to be placed under house arrest pending probation violation hearing

Kenneth Medenbach, taken into custody last month in Las Vegas where he had traveled to attend the Bunkerville trial, was ordered released from custody at 2 p.m. Wednesday.

He’ll be placed on house arrest with electronic monitoring upon his return to Oregon, pending a May 22 probation violation hearing in U.S. District Court in Eugene.

Medenbach ended up being held at the same jail in Nevada where the Bundy brothers are awaiting federal trial. Upon release, he sent his attorney a photograph of Bundy supporters protesting outside the Nevada Southern Detention Center in Pahrump, Nevada.

Medenbach, convicted in April 2016 of illegal camping and unlawfully occupying federal public land in Josephine County, was sentenced to five years probation. As a condition of probation, he’s required to seek permission before traveling out of state.

Despite that restriction, Medenbach traveled to Nevada. He also didn’t disclose where he was when a probation officer contacted him. He admitted he was out of state but wouldn’t say where, according to federal court documents. He told his probation officer he was at a meeting out of state where he had been invited to speak.  On April 12, he was arrested on a warrant outside the federal courthouse in Las Vegas, according to prosecutors.

Medenbach’s lawyer Matthew Schindler this week argued for Medenbach’s release. He and Medenbach also plan to urge the court to lift the travel restriction.

“This is a misdemeanor camping case involving a man with no history of violence and who did nothing more than exercise his fundamental right to witness a criminal trial at a federal courthouse outside of this judicial district without government permission,” Schindler wrote. “He should be freed immediately.”

Medenbach felt a moral duty to support others facing trial in Nevada, after he had received such support during his federal conspiracy trial stemming from the takeover of the Malheur National Wildlife Refuge, Schindler said.

“Because hundreds of people who had no connection to him supported him during his crucible in Portland, he felt a powerful responsibility to attend the trials in Nevada,” Schindler wrote. “Beyond that, because of his personal and spiritual relationship with the Bundy family, he felt it was a moral imperative to be there providing support.”

Assistant U.S. Attorney Douglas W. Fong had urged the court to keep Medenbach in custody pending a May 22 probation violation hearing in U.S. District Court in Eugene.

“Defendant’s blatant and repeated disregard for the court’s orders and his refusal to recognize the court’s jurisdiction, his deceptive statements to his probation officer and his veiled threats to take up arms against the government demonstrate that there are no release conditions that will protect the public and assure his appearance in this case,” Fong wrote in a court filing.

The trip to Vegas marked Medenbach’s second violation of probation, Fong noted. His involvement in the takeover of the Malheur National Wildlife Refuge while on probation in this illegal camping case was his first violation, as he had agreed not to occupy any federal lands, Fong wrote.

A federal jury last fall acquitted Medenbach of conspiracy and theft of government property charges.

This week, U.S. District Judge Michael McShane ordered Medenbach to remain under house arrest, with electronic monitoring, until further notification from the court.

Medenbach, meanwhile, is appealing his illegal camping conviction.  He was convicted of setting up an illegal cabin on U.S. Bureau of Land Management property at Peavine Road near Galice, Oregon.

The cabin that Kenneth Medenbach put up along U.S. Bureau of Land Management property in Josephine County. (Federal court exhibit)Maxine Bernstein | The Oregonian/OregonLive 

He contends the federal district court could not place him on probation and, at the same time, impose six months in custody as a sentence. He had already served the six months following his arrest in Burns by the time he was sentenced in the Josephine County camping case on Aug. 1, 2016.

He’s also challenging the $2,506 he’s ordered to pay in restitution, saying it can’t be added as a penalty for a misdemeanor conviction since he also had to spend time in custody.

His probation officer, in a court filing, said he went to visit Medenbach’s home in Crescent on April 10 after Medenbach had been seen driving through the parking lots of the U.S. Bureau of Land Management and U.S. Forest Service offices in Prineville. Medenbach also sent both agencies letters, ordering them to “cease and desist”  activity of the Grant County Public Forest Commission, and if not, threatened “We the People” would form and raise up a “well-regulated militia.”

Medenbach has a long history of challenging federal government control of public land, starting with his 1988 construction of some cabins and an outhouse on five acres of land he bought for $700 northeast of Crescent, without obtaining any permits from Klamath County.

The probation officer said Medenbach hasn’t paid any of his restitution. When the probation officer didn’t find Medenbach at home last month, he called him. That’s when Medenbach admitted he was out of state but wouldn’t say where, according to court documents.

“Defendant claims he’s in ill health, but this did not prevent him from traveling to Las Vegas, spending his money in furtherance of his ’cause’ rather than for his court ordered restitution,” prosecutor Fong wrote in court filing on Monday.

Medenbach’s travel restriction is too broad and unwarranted, Schindler responded.

“If there is an explanation for why we are all safer when Mr. Medenbach does not travel south of Mt. Ashland without permission, it is difficult to see what that is,” he wrote. ” It is a question, one would think, that could be asked on behalf of many defendants in this district.”

— Maxine Bernstein

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