BUNKERVILLE STANDOFF: PLEA DEALS FOR ERIC PARKER, SCOTT DREXLER, EVIDENCE HEARING FOR NEXT TRIAL WITH DAN LOVE TESTIFYING

A week before their third trial was set to begin on charges related to the April 2014 Bunkerville Standoff near Bundy Ranch, Eric Parker and Scott Drexler pled guilty to a charge of obstruction of a court order.   This is a misdemeanor charge.

Parker and Drexler will be sentenced February 2, 2018.  Both men will not serve any additional jail time, receiving credit for the 18 months already served without bail since they were arrested early last year and held through the end of the second trial a few months ago.

Juries have either acquitted the two or deadlocked 11-1 not guilty on most of the twenty felony charges leveled against them.

Parker was facing four felony charges next week and Drexler two felonies related to firearms  and with potential sentences of 15 plus years for Drexler and 30 plus years for Parker.

What drove today's events may have been both a combination of concern from the defendants about how a jury would react to charges involving firearms after the Las Vegas mass killing and some pressure from Republican politicians in Idaho who had written letters to US Attorney General Jeff Sessions with a copy sent to the White House urging release of Idaho residents like Parker, Drexler and others accused over Bunkerville pending their trials.

The Republicans politicians also expressed their concern over a potential miscarriage of justice in the Bunkerville case.

But there are still other defendants held in jail without bail over Bunkerville with four of them facing trial next week.

Cliven Bundy, Ammon Bundy, Ryan Bundy and Ryan Payne are still to be tried in the third trial.

The status of the planned October 30th trial will be clarified in a "calendar call" involving Judge Navarro and the prosecution and defense lawyers tomorrow in Las Vegas.   The trial was pushed back to that date after the carnage in Las Vegas earlier this month.

Today there was an evidence hearing in Las Vegas for that trial before US District Judge Gloria Navarro and being questioned as a potential witness by Skype was fired Bureau of Land Management agent Dan Love.

Love directed BLM during the standoff.   Questions about a missing computer Love used and shredded documents were among those posed by defendant Ryan Payne's lawyers.  Many "I don't recall" answers were given.

But a very important part of his testimony in the pre-trial hearing was Love saying that people above him in Washington were giving orders to people under his command that he was not aware of which apparently  includes the destruction of documents related to the standoff.

Witnesses were ordered out of the courtroom for part of the hearing.

Judge Navarro was more willing than in the past to overrule objections from federal prosecutors during today's hearing.