BUNKERVILLE STANDOFF: THE PETE SANTILLI SENTENCING FARCE
"Stay with the Bundy's and you'll be OK"
Cliven Bundy
Internet broadcaster Pete Santilli was arrested in Burns, Oregon the evening of January 26th, 2016 just hours after the bloody FBI operation outside of town that killed LaVoy Finicum and injured Ryan Bundy.
Santilli was in town broadcasting the news of what happened and did different things from standing outside the hospital where the injured Ryan Bundy was being treated to vaping in front of the camera for some apparent stress relief.
But the feds decided to nab him and wanted to try him in Oregon for his internet streams. Charges were dropped in Oregon but Santilli was moved to Nevada to face a slew of felonies along with some 18 others.
He was set to go on trial last fall with key defendants like Cliven Bundy and his sons Ammon and Ryan but feeling the pressure one can only feel from a federal prosecution, Santilli opted for a plea deal. (Federal prosecutors have a 98 percent conviction rate in a rigged system)
The federal prosecutors were accusing Santilli among other things of spreading false information about snipers around Bundy Ranch to draw people to come exercising their Second Amendment rights to defend the Bundy's.
The prosecution was able to get away with that false narrative through the first two trials that there were no surveillance cameras or snipers or threatening actions against the Bundy's and those who came to support them in April 2014.
But in the third trial Ryan Bundy broke through in his questioning of a US Forest Service employee who admitted to the surveillance camera being used. US District Judge Gloria M. Navarro then forced release of a massive amount of evidence proving the defendants innocence including the existence of the snipers.
She then dismissed charges against the defendants in the third trial based on the hiding of the evidence pointing to their innocence.
However Pete Santilli's option to agree to the plea deal left him out of the exoneration he would have gotten in the third trial.
Instead a guilty plea to conspiracy to impede or injure a federal officer yesterday (Tuesday September 11th) before US District Judge Gloria M. Navarro.
The same Judge Navarro who threw out the charges against key defendants in the case saying the prosecutors were guilty of "gross misconduct" was in the same room with those prosecutors accepting Santilli's plea.
Navarro called his actions "reckless" and sentenced him to time served and two years of supervised release.
Two more plea deal sentences are to come for Blaine Cooper on September 27th and Brian Cavalier on December 13th.
The federal prosecutors were accusing Santilli among other things of spreading false information about snipers around Bundy Ranch to draw people to come exercising their Second Amendment rights to defend the Bundy's.
The prosecution was able to get away with that false narrative through the first two trials that there were no surveillance cameras or snipers or threatening actions against the Bundy's and those who came to support them in April 2014.
But in the third trial Ryan Bundy broke through in his questioning of a US Forest Service employee who admitted to the surveillance camera being used. US District Judge Gloria M. Navarro then forced release of a massive amount of evidence proving the defendants innocence including the existence of the snipers.
She then dismissed charges against the defendants in the third trial based on the hiding of the evidence pointing to their innocence.
However Pete Santilli's option to agree to the plea deal left him out of the exoneration he would have gotten in the third trial.
Instead a guilty plea to conspiracy to impede or injure a federal officer yesterday (Tuesday September 11th) before US District Judge Gloria M. Navarro.
The same Judge Navarro who threw out the charges against key defendants in the case saying the prosecutors were guilty of "gross misconduct" was in the same room with those prosecutors accepting Santilli's plea.
Navarro called his actions "reckless" and sentenced him to time served and two years of supervised release.
Two more plea deal sentences are to come for Blaine Cooper on September 27th and Brian Cavalier on December 13th.
(MORE TO COME)
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