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March 28, 2024

Defense resumes with testimony on FBI informant, David Fry’s mental eval and ‘ugly guns’

Ranching Standoff Trial

Protestors gather outside the federal courthouse in Portland, Ore., Tuesday, Sept. 13, 2016. The trial of The Bundy brothers, Ammon and Ryan, and five others are on trial nine months after the armed occupation of a wildlife refuge in Oregon as government prosecutors begin opening statements today in Portland.(AP Photo/Don Ryan)

The defense case in the Oregon standoff trial continued Tuesday with testimony from a San Diego woman who was paid $3,000 by the FBI to serve as an informant.

Terri Linnell said she received a call from an FBI agent in San Diego asking if she'd be willing to go to the Malheur National Wildlife Refuge to report her observations and keep an eye out for any illegal activity occurring there.

"They asked me to just be myself," Linnell testified.

She described herself as a longtime protester who had gotten to know an FBI agent in San Diego about six months earlier on an unrelated case.

Linnell said she was asked to report back on six people: Ammon Bundy of Emmett, Idaho; Ryan Bundy of Cedar City, Utah; Ryan Payne of Anaconda, Montana; Blaine Cooper of Dewey-Humboldt, Arizona; Jon Ritzheimer of Peoria, Arizona; and Joseph O'Shaughnessy of Cottonwood, Arizona.

Ammon Bundy led the Jan. 2 armed takeover of the bird sanctuary in eastern Oregon. The Bundy brothers are on trial with five others on a conspiracy charge alleging that they impeded federal workers from doing their jobs at the refuge using force, intimidation or threats. Payne, Cooper, Ritzheimer and O'Shaughnessy all pleaded guilty earlier in the case.

Linnell testified that she cooked and cleaned during her stay from Jan. 12 through Jan. 23 at the refuge. She said she didn't see defendants Neil Wampler, Shawna Cox or David Fry carrying guns and described Cox as serving in an "administrative assistant" role, not as a leader of the occupation. She said there were no drugs or alcohol there.

Yet Assistant U.S. Attorney Geoffrey Barrow pointed out during cross-examination that Linnell had reported to the FBI on Jan. 14 that she heard talk among people at the refuge about "taking over another federal facility in Burns."

"What?" Linnell asked. "What report are you looking at?"

Barrow read from the report again and asked if she also recalled telling the FBI on Jan. 19 that there were children staying at the refuge and that she and others were uncomfortable with that.

"I said it wasn't appropriate. They weren't in school," Linnell responded.

Barrow asked if Linnell had reported back to the FBI on Jan. 21 that people at the refuge were carrying rifles while conducting regular patrols?

"Some, not all," Linnell said, adding that a few people had "little six shooters."

"You reported there were sovereigns at the refuge and that caused you concern?" Barrow asked.

Linnell said she was concerned because she had heard some people saying they could authorize others to become U.S. marshals.

"You reported to the FBI because it was important, right?" Barrow said.

Linnell responded that the FBI asked her a lot of "irrelevant questions."

Per C. Olson, defendant David Fry's court-appointed attorney, asked Linnell if she was told to report any illegal activity to the FBI. She said she was.

"Did you see any?" Olson asked.

"No," Linnell replied.

Several different defense lawyers called witnesses Tuesday, the start of the fifth week of the case.

Ryan Bundy, Ammon's older brother who is representing himself, became emotional as he called his wife, Angela Bundy, to the stand. He had to pause for several minutes before he could ask his first question.

"You're my wife, right?" he asked.

She said she was.

"We've been married just shy of 19 years?" Bundy asked.

"Shy of 18 years," Angela Bundy corrected, drawing laughter.

"Ladies and gentlemen, please," U.S. District Judge Anna J. Brown said to the courtroom crowd, asking Ryan Bundy to continue.

Ryan Bundy established through his wife that he came to Burns on Jan. 2, a Saturday, with Robert "LaVoy" Finicum, who became the refuge occupation spokesman.

"What were my plans on returning?" Bundy asked.

"You told me you'd be home Monday, at the latest," Angela Bundy said. "I think I packed you one change of clothes."

His wife testified that she expected and wanted her husband back at home. "Yes, you had duties within the church and duties as my husband and father of our kids," she said.

Tiffany Harris, Cox's standby attorney, called Cox's cousin, Sheila Dutton of Hurricane, Utah, and Cox's husband, Donald Cox, of Kanab, Utah, to testify.

Dutton said Shawna Cox picked her up about 6 a.m. on New Year's Day to drive the 12- to 15- hour trip to Burns. She said they attended a protest in support of Harney County ranchers Dwight Hammond Jr. and son Steven Hammond, who were facing a return to federal prison on Jan. 4 to serve a minimum mandatory five-year sentence for setting fire to federal land.

Cox had called Dutton about 9 p.m. the night before, she said, to ask ito accompany her on a trip to Burns. Cox's husband said his wife was reluctant to go because of his poor health but he encouraged her to do so.

"It was only going to be a few days," Donald Cox said.

Dutton described the protest in Burns as a "walk around the block" and said she was with Cox the entire time. Neither attended any planning meeting regarding the refuge takeover, she testified. But Dutton said she did drive out to the refuge with Cox.

She said they thought, "We've driven this many miles ... we might as well see what started this whole thing."

Dutton left the refuge and went home on Jan. 4. Cox stayed until her arrest Jan. 26.

A forensic psychologist who evaluated defendant David Fry testified that she met with him three times and diagnosed him with schizotypal personality disorder, marked by extreme paranoia and a sense of hopelessness.

She said Fry heard a voice that told him to go to the refuge.

"He felt the voice told him Mr. LaVoy Finicum would not survive this incident and he wanted to meet him," said Michelle Guyton, co-owner of Northwest Forensic Institute. "He felt it was giving him a premonition. That happened just before he came out to Oregon."

Guyton testified that "there was a clear shift" in Fry after Finicum was shot and killed by state police on Jan. 26 during a confrontation off the refuge.

Fry's concern that he was going to be harmed and killed intensified and he talked about the "end of times," she said.

Others who testified included Janelle Tobias, a gun rights organizer who is part of Women Against Gun Control and an environmental group Safe Open Space. She has a bachelor's degree in communications and public relations from Brigham Young University, she said.

"So you're both a tree hugger and a Second Amendment" advocate, asked defense lawyer Lisa Maxfield, who represents defendant Neil Wampler.

Tobias said she went to the refuge on Jan. 7 and had a meeting the next day with the Bundy brothers and Finicum. She said she was concerned about the perception people would have from the display of "long guns and ugly guns" at the refuge.

"When people see long guns and ugly guns they were being perceived as the aggressor," Tobias said she told the occupation leaders.

During cross-examination, Barrow asked whether in Tobias' opinion, the world would perceive the occupiers with long guns as threatening or intimidating?

"Yes," she said.

But on redirect, Tobias added, "I believe they were there to educate people about the Hammonds and the Constitution and they were not the aggressors at all."

Another defense witness Vicky Davis, who said she wrote for "Voice of Idaho," testified that while visiting the refuge on Jan. 4, she saw a man wearing a U.S. Fish & Wildlife Service uniform get into one of his agency vehicles.

But when asked during cross-examination to describe the uniform, Davis' description was general, saying it looked like a brown "outdoor jacket" that resembled that of a ranger.

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