Refuge manager, fish biologist tell jurors how they felt scared, violated during occupation

The manager of the Malheur National Wildife Refuge and its former fish biologist returned to the witness stand Tuesday to testify about the fears they felt just before and during the armed takeover of the federal bird sanctuary.

Manager Chad Karges, who was aware Ammon Bundy and followers were in the Burns area in late November and December 2015, said he placed loaded guns at every door of his home "just because of the threats I had seen'' involving Bundy and his family's standoff with federal agents in Bunkerville, Nevada, in 2014.

After Christmas that year, Karges told his children and grandchildren not to venture into Burns.

Karges said he didn't feel comfortable reporting to work at the refuge after the seizure by Bundy and his followers on Jan. 2, 2016, because of the presence of armed guards in the refuge tower and on its premises as he'd seen in media reports.

Karges said he also received a law enforcement briefing five days after the takeover and learned of threats made by the occupiers. He ordered his staff to evacuate from Harney County, he said.

Karges wasn't permitted by the judge to share the specific threat that law enforcement officers shared with him on Jan. 7, 2016. Occupiers planned to kidnap a refuge employee and exchange that worker for someone held in custody, according to Assistant U.S. Attorney Geoffrey Barrow.

During cross-examination, Karges said it was his own decision to place guns by every door in his home and that he had already left the county before that Jan. 7.

Fish biologist Linda Beck testified that she bought a gun because she feared for her safety during the occupation.

Before the takeover, she said she noticed "militia was kind of building their presence'' in and around Burns.

Asked if she felt comfortable going to work at the refuge, Beck said: "I did not. I wanted to leave. I feared for my safety and the safety of my employees.''

Beck learned of the takeover via text message from a friend in Wisconsin, she said.

Asked why she didn't report to work then, Beck said she had seen pictures in social media "of people with sniper rifles in our tower'' and on the refuge grounds.

"It made me fee really scared and violated,'' she said.

On Jan. 7, 2016, Beck said she learned that occupier Ryan Bundy had referred to her by her full name, "Linda Sue Beck,'' and called her "carp lady" in a Reuters story that ran with photos of rifles resting against a pillar in her office.

"I was very fearful,'' she testified. "I ran out to my gate in my driveway and locked the gate.''

She said she also called her parents to protect them because she had heard a reporter from New York had contacted them.

"I was very unsettled and started feeling very unsafe,'' she said.

The government finished calling rebuttal witnesses and rested its case shortly after the refuge employees' testimony and the playing of a Jan. 9, 2016, Oregon Public Broadcasting interview with Ryan Bundy.

Four defendants -- Jason S. Patrick, 43, of Bonaire, Georgia, Duane L. Ehmer, 46, of Irrigon, Oregon, Darryl W. Thorn, 32, of Marysville, Washington, and Jake E. Ryan, 28, of Plains, Montana -- are charged with conspiring to impede federal employees from doing their work at the refuge through intimidation, threat or force. Three face firearms charges, and two are charged with digging trenches on government property.

Assistant U.S. Attorney Ethan Knight then delivered his closing argument, which ran about an hour and 25 minutes.

"This case is about four defendants who went too far,'' Knight said.

They embraced occupation leader Ammon Bundy's call to take a hard stand in the protest of the federal government and its prosecution of two Harney County ranchers, Dwight Hammond Jr. and son Steven Hammond. The Hammonds were ordered to return to federal prison on Jan. 4, 2016, to serve out five-year sentences for setting fire to public land.

But the defendants "pushed the limits of civil society,'' Knight argued.

He advised jurors once again not to search for evidence of a formal agreement or contract between the defendants, but to evaluate all the evidence, statements by the defendants and their alleged co-conspirators and social media posts -- and infer what occurred.

He urged them to consider the armed guards stationed at the refuge tower and gates, strangers living and sleeping in refuge buildings and more than 20,000 rounds of ammunition found on the refuge property after the occupation ended.

"The only way to protest the Hammonds in the way these people wanted was to keep employees out'' of the refuge, Knight said.

"This case is not about the Hammonds,'' he said. "It's what these defendants did with that motivation.''

Defense lawyers will provide their closing arguments separately after court resumes at 12:30 p.m.

-- Maxine Bernstein

mbernstein@oregonian.com
503-221-8212
@maxoregonian

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