DeLemus' wife tells of cruel treatment at Nevada facility

Jerry DeLemus during his time on the Bundy ranch two years ago. (Courtesy photo)

Facebook posts by the wife of a Rochester man spirited off last week by federal marshals to face indictment in Nevada in the Bundy ranch standoff of 2014 point to callous and cruel treatment of their prisoner at a Nevada holding facility.

Jerry DeLemus, who was transported from Strafford County Jail to Nevada late last month, was left in a cold holding cell at the City of Henderson Detention Center in Henderson, Nev., for about 10 hours with no blanket and only a cement slab bench to sit on, a Facebook post by his wife noted.

Susan DeLemus also said that once transferred to a small cell, guards still didn't bring him a blanket and sniggered together about his plight.

She said he is kept in solitary confinement 23 hours a day and only let out to exercise an hour a day with the only human interaction that of the guards at mealtime.

He was scheduled to have a detention hearing today.

DeLemus, a Tea Party activist and co-chair of the state Veterans for Trump for President group, was named in a March 3 indictment as a midlevel leader and organizer in the Cliven Bundy standoff with federal agents, and that he: recruited, organized, trained and provided logistical support to gunmen and other followers and organized and led armed patrols and security checkpoints from April 12 till the end of May 2014.

A 60-some page indictment specifically charges him with conspiracy to commit an offense against the United States, threatening a federal law enforcement officer, assault on a federal officer, obstruction of justice, attempting to impede or injure a federal law enforcement officer, interference with interstate commerce by extortion, and several firearms charges, according to court records.

He was arrested on March 3 as a squad of federal agents rushed his Rochester condo guns drawn and took him into custody.

Two days later a federal judge granted DeLemus and new defense attorney Mark Sisti a second bail hearing, which DeLemus and his supporters had hoped would be in Concord, but was later ruled to be transferred to Las Vegas where he was indicted.

Susan DeLemus also wrote in a Facebook post that her husband's transport to Las Vegas was trying as well, with agents taking pictures of the couple she'd given to Jerry soon after leaving a Brooklyn, N.Y., facility and later taking his wedding band from him in Oklahoma.

"The pictures are probably gone for good but I am hoping that his wedding band will be sent home," she wrote.

It was not clear if Sisti was still representing DeLemus in Nevada, with Susan DeLemus naming a Nevada lawyer, Brian Smith, as now working the case. Neither Sisti nor Smith were immediately available for comment.