Trial of eco-activist who punk'd BLM begins

At the end of 2008, the incoming Obama administration called attempts to sell prime parcels of Bureau of Land Management land near Utah's national parks improper and told the Bush administration to stop. But the person who did the most to halt the sales was a former guide and University of Utah student named Tim DeChristopher.

DeChristopher, then 27, entered the BLM auction in Salt Lake City in late December and bid for 13 parcels of land outside Arches and Canyonlands National Parks, comprising about 22,000 acres. Days later, a federal judge put all the sales on hold and the new secretary of the Interior, Ken Salazar, reversed them.

But the Obama administration did not thank DeChristopher. Instead, his trial on felony charges of intefering with a federal auction began Monday, as hundreds of sympathizers protested outside the federal courthouse in Salt Lake City. If convicted, DeChristopher, who admitted he had no intention of paying the $1.8 million tab he ran up at the auction, could face up to 10 years in prison and a $750,000 fine.

He may have been a hero to environmentalists, but DeChristopher disrupted one of BLM's regular tasks -- auctioning off parcels of land for oil or gas exploration. Energy groups, which sued to overturn Salzar's overturning of the sales, warned that allowing DeChristopher to get away with his bids would create a fatal vulnerability in any future sale of exploration rights.

(For those keeping score at home, another federal judge has ruled that Salazar exceeded his authority in reversing the sales, but the judge did not reinstate them because the energy industry's lawsuit came a day too late.)

The U.S. attorney's office is not commenting on the case, but when it filed charges in 2009, acting U.S. Attorney Brett Tolman said: “Our nation is a nation of laws, and we live by the rule of law. We recognize that individuals have deeply felt views about important public issues, and they certainly should hold and express those views. However, there are ways to express viewpoints and to press for change without violating the law, disrupting open public processes, and causing financial harm to the government and to other individuals."

Actress Darryl Hannah was one of the demonstrators outside the courthouse on Monday, as was Angel Hays of Millcreek, Utah. “The bigger picture for him was the national parks," she told the Salt Lake Tribune. "Protecting our sacred places is worth going to jail for.”

DeChristopher's trial is expected to take about four days and he is expected to testify. The judge hearing the case has ruled that DeChristopher's defense cannot bring up his motivations for his action.

RELATED NATIONAL PARKS STORIES:

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A coal mine near Bryce Canyon National Park?

-Nicholas Riccardi

Photo: Tim DeChristopher, now 29, after he won bids on 13 parcels at a BLM auction to block the Bush administration's sale of lands in southern Utah. Photo Credit: Courtney Sargent, Deseret News

Comments

[Mike Holland]

What a shame atty Brett tolman is willing to uphold only the laws he agrees with. The sale was deemed improper, later, and the law allows one to break the law to prevent a crime, which DeC. certainly did.

The Obama admin is guilty in this and I, for one, am letting this be the
Final straw that gets me to turn against the Dems, in 2012. They have proven themselves to be corporate patsies.

[affableman]

Good for him. The Republicans would sell off the national parks to their buddies if they thought they could get away with it.

[Bob]

"We are a nation of laws"-

Translation- You just need to be wealthy enough to hire lawyers/judges/prosecutors to interpret them the way you want. Call John Yoo for details.

"Energy groups warned that allowing DeChristopher to get away with his bids would create a fatal vulnerability in any future sale of exploration rights."

Translation: Energy groups tell the BLM how to run the pony show. Who's your daddy? Big Business.

"U.S. Attorney Brett Tolman said: “We recognize that individuals have deeply felt views about important public issues, and they certainly should hold and express those views."

Translation- You just need to express those views 200 yards that way behind the Free Speech Zone Barricade so as not to interrupt our auctioning of the public commons to Big Energy robber barons.

"The judge hearing the case has ruled that DeChristopher's defense cannot bring up his motivations for his action."

Translation- If your motivation is not wealth building via capitalism, then you are a trouble making human wrench in the clogs of freemarket trickery and therefore subject to prosecution when caught outside your designated Free Speech Zone 200 yards that way across the street, you tree hugger.

[Dave Smith]

BLM was going to allow "Golden Arches" park.
Tim is a hero.
Court system = sham

[Juniper Girl]

Tim's a hero. The problem with the jury trial is that the judge has stripped him of being able to talk about his motives. He has been prohibited from explaining his action as an act of civil disobedience, an act to prevent a worse "evil." He also has been prohibited from referencing other cases in which bidders have not paid (oil and gas companies, of course), under the defense of selective prosecution. That's why the jury won't have all the information. That's why the trial is a cruel demonstration of intimidation rather than an attempt at justice. It's designed to make us all afraid to use civil disobedience, a time honored principle in this country.

[Adjacent-to-BLM landowner]

And no one from the Bureau of Leasing and Mining is prosecuted for all the ongoing instances of corrupt sales to individuals and corporations that have influenced the process via "donations" of expensive trips, jet ski's, snowmobiles, dirt bikes, etc. etc. to mid-level employees of the BLM that have "greased the skids" on their behalf to make sure that they get advance notice, non-public information, etc. and priority treatment before and during auctions?

C'mon government watchdogs.....follow the money and "gifts", again and again.
THAT is where the real story is regarding BLM and their auction processes.

[Nylene Schoellhorn]

Our public lands are being destroyed by the greedy rich.
The BLM wants to make an example of this young man. They want to make WE THE PEOPLE afraid to challenge the BLM.

"We are a nation of laws"-How can it be legal and just that this judge can state that the motives of this brave young man will not be a part of his defense?
His MOTIVES are to save our land. What other power do we the people have than the right to civil disobedience? What other way to stop business as usual? The BLM is totally corrupt and we need this brought to light.

The BLM not only sells leases to big mining and oil corporations, they kill the predators of cattle ranches- with our tax money. Wolves, coyotes and cougars are wiped out each year by the BLM -as a favor to the cattle ranchers who lease our lands for token amounts of money.
Cattle ranching is not good for our environment, our economy, or our health.

The BLM is rounding up our wild horses to the point there will soon be no wild horses left free on our public lands. Or any other wild animals except those who are sport hunted for huge amounts of money.
It is all about money. We are killing our lands, our world, for money.
Stop the BLM.
Eat the Rich.

This land is your land, this land is my land-this land belongs to you and me!
Not the BLM, not the Corporations, not the Rich.
WE must stop them.

[Paul Taylor Examiner]

Enviro's 12 Step Program to Recovery:
The first decade of the 21st Century may be seen as the decade in which environmentalism peaked, and then failed from its own hubris and corruption. It has taken about a decade in a deluge of environmental proselytizing, marketing, hysterics and gratuitous lies to expose the greed and fear mongering of a movement that exists now as just another political special interest. Their shameful trade in scary eco-scenarios now falls on deaf ears in the public mind. Except for those for whom environmentalism is a practiced religion or commercial enterprise, eco-themes and incentives have been largely exhausted, and even caricatured in our popular culture.

Radical environmentalism can also be seen as a disorder, where the sanctimonious enviro-activist’s obsessive insistence that you should change your lifestyle toward eco-purity begins to impair their personal and professional relationships. The enduring negative impact of environmental activism is the politicization of your way of life.

As with other obsession and addiction disorders, therapies and counseling in the form of “12-Step” clinical programs may be helpful in moderating radical enviro-behaviors. Here are 12 behavioral modifications that may be productive steps in recovery from ,or avoidance of, radical environmentalism:
1. Avoid the tactic of fear mongering campaigns;
2. Stop giving to taxpayer-subsidized, nonprofit eco-groups and think tanks;
3. Critically view progressive (a.k.a, liberal) enviro operatives in the media;
4. Accept that there are legitimate skeptics in debates over scary eco-scenarios;
5. Stop substituting personal compassion where science is required in environmental issues;
6. Stop assuming that another costly government regulation will fix every environmental problem;
7. Resist socialist initiatives claiming environmental justice and social justice;
8. Ignore the eco-claimed moral equivalence between human life and wildlife;
9. Reduce your associations with the union, bureaucratic, leftist and eco-terrorist political enablers of radical environmentalism;
10. Insist upon economic cost-benefit analyses in all environmental regulations;
11. Don’t accept that any government regulation can dictate any miraculous scientific breakthrough;
12. Accept that 40 years of local, state and federal environmental regulations have embedded cost increases in all of our goods, services and activities. And, understand that most of our real environmental problems are solved, or are under active management.

[diaper rash]

This prosecution is BLM ridiculous. The U.S. Attorney in this case deserves a swift kick in the Arches. I would expect the judge in this case will overrule the jury should they find "guilty" on the interference charge.

De Christopher didn't interfere with this auction of mineral extraction licenses on Federal parcels, it was conducted and concluded as scheduled.

Per the judges instructions, De Christopher's intentions are not to allowed to be introduced in his defense. Likewise, it is not a consideration in determining his culpability for the charge.

It is not a crime to participate in an auction without the ability to fulfill the bid.
The bidders punishment is the forfeiture of his deposit and any further financial judgement to which his participation may cause to be levied against his assets or earnings. His punishment could also include bannishment from eligibility to participate in future auctions.

Now, if the man had made an expressly fraudulent representation he could possibly be tangling with some criminal action. Such as if he presented the auctioneer with a forged "letter of credit" or forged "letter of guaranteed assets on deposit" from a bank in order to improperly obtain a bidder's paddle. I don't read that De Christopher is accused of anything like that.

Winning bidders at auctions always include a percentage who fail to perform
in completing the transaction. That percentage will go down as the amount of deposit risked to forfeit goes up. Where does it say that I may not bid beyond the last penny in my pocket to become the high and winning bidder?

Where does it say that as I make my way down the aisle towards the settlement office that I cannot be raising cash investors in my partnership. That is how my winning bid is paid in full that same day which I started out with only enough cash for deposit to get my paddle.

What happened 10 -15 years ago when the federal government was auctioning off huge chunks of frequency spectrum which became the Canyonlands of our cellular telephone infrastucture?

Winning bidders failed to raise enough from investors to fulfill on Billions of $dollars in winning bids on frequency rights. The deadline was then extended by the government once or twice or even three times so the winning bidder might be able to pay up. Even after that, some of the bandwidth went unclaimed and had to be placed at auction a second time. I don't remember any of those bidders being hit with a criminal prosecution.

As to the allegations of financial harm to the government or the other bidders ----WHERE?

If De Christopher falls through then the government earns his forfeited deposit or other financial penalty. They can then immedeatly offer the parcel to the second highest bidder and on down the line. Or place it back at auction in a make-up session that same day or the following morning - whatever the rules they have set specify is done when the winner can't pay up.

So the government is not hurt financially if De Christopher wins and fails to perform and the government is not hurt if De Christopher pushes a competing bidder to pay more .

All that is left is the complaints of another winning bidder that DeChristophers's participation pushed the price closer to their maximum.

Too Bad!!! That is called an auction. I may participate in an auction
because I wish to be the nemesis of some other bidder.

As long I am not working in financial collusion with the auctioneer or the seller in an undisclosed arrangement. As long as I am not exempt from the penalty of deposit forfeiture which the other bidders are at risk of.

There doesn't seem to be any accusation that De Christopher was working as a "shill" for the BLM. I simply can't see what crime they think he committed at their little backwood's auction.

[richard schumacher]

Surely he's having a jury trial? They can find him innocent.

[Greenkraft expertise]

traduit en français à http://energiesrenouvelablesdanslemonde.blogspot.com/

[Linda]

If only Obama had one tenth of this guy's courage!

[Rick O'Malley.]

Has the BLM never heard of Proof of Funds in order to qualify to bid? The auction managers should be castigated for incompetence, not this guy. He is a HERO and should be medaled.

[Mangello]

Who has 1.8 million lying around to buy something like this? Only a corporation or an extremely wealthy person would purchase such a land. These lands will be used and abused for the profit of very few already wealthy stakeholders. Individuals have no say in what happens to supposedly public land anymore. There is often no forum for us to legally protest auctions and decisions that result in terrible environmental disasters.

[Kevin Keane]

...and the rich sob's who bankrupted the country get to keep their ill gotten gains, and spend them freely.

[dangermouse]

LMAO LA Times. Nice headlines - you guys hire Ashton Kutcher to write for you? GTG

[Robert]

Really? We're trying this guy for helping to stop a process the Obama Adminsitration WANTED stopped? This guy is a hero.

[az66]

(sigh)... and this: "...create a fatal vulnerability in any sale future of exploration rights."

If your awesome editing continues on this path the LATimes is going to be worse than reading a 15th century manuscript on an e-reader.

[Oso Viejo]

Somewhere, Edward Abbey is smiling.

[az66]

You know, you can just go ahead and spell it 'punked'. When you spell it 'Punk'd' You're specifically referencing a TV show. Today alone I've found three spelling errors, two sentences whose grammar made no sense whatsoever, the claim that James Worthy was finals MVP in 1998 and now this. What is up with your quality control?