Las Vegas Jury Reaches Mixed Result in First Trial Related to Cliven Bundy Standoff

Two of six defendants convicted, hung jury for others.

Ryan Bundy checks his phone inside the occupied headquarters of Malheur National Wildlife Refuge. (John Sepulvado)
By Nigel Jaquiss

The Las Vegas Review Journal is reporting this morning that jurors reached a mixed verdict in the first of three scheduled trials related to a 2014 standoff in Nevada between federal agents and supporters of rancher Cliven Bundy.

Six defendants (not including Bundy or his family members) stood trial in U.S. District Court in Las Vegas for threatening and assaulting a federal officer, obstruction, extortion, weapon violations and conspiracy.

The 2014 standoff took place after the feds moved to seize Bundy's cattle for non-payment of federal grazing fees. The incident galvanized people unhappy with federal control of vast swaths of the west and led to the 2016 occupation of the Malhuer Wildlife Refuge, led by Cliven Bundy' son, Ammon.

"Bundy and 10 other people are incarcerated pending trial on similar charges," the Review Journal wrote today. "Prosecutors divided the defendants into three groups for trial. The first group, charged as 'gunmen,' have been described by the government as the least culpable of the alleged co-conspirators."

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