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Fed judge gives DeLemus 15 months more than prosecutors urged

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Jerry DeLemus during his time in Bunkersvile, Nev., in 2014. (Courtesy photo)

LAS VEGAS, Nev. - The Rochester man who pleaded guilty to being a midlevel leader at the 2014 Cliven Bundy standoff in Nevada was sentenced on Wednesday to seven years and three months in federal prison.

Federal prosecutors had asked for Jerry DeLemus to receive a six-year prison term, after he pleaded guilty last August, Susan DeLemus, his wife, told The Lebanon Voice earlier this month.
But federal judge Gloria Navarro tacked on an additional 15 months, calling DeLemus a "vigilante bully" during her pronouncing of the sentence on Wednesday.

Former Republican State chairman Jack Kimball, who has been a tireless supporter and organizer for DeLemus, took to Facebook to condemn the ruling.

"I am telling all of you that this decision cannot and will not stand. We must turn our outrage into action ASAP!," Kimball said.

DeLemus, an active Tea Party organizer in Rochester and a co-chair of the Trump for President effort in New Hampshire early in 2016, also visited the Malheur Wildlife Refuge in Oregon during an anti-government standoff there, but was never charged in that incident.

Susan DeLemus said she may appeal the sentence.

Earlier this month DeLemus' lawyer filed a motion urging Navarro to reconsider refusing Deemus' request to change his plea deal to not guilty, but no reconsideration was forthcoming

DeLemus, who initially pleaded guilty, had sought to change his plea after several defendants in the Malheur standoff were acquitted.

Just as in the Oregon standoff, DeLemus, a Marine veteran, has long said he went to Nevada to defuse the situation, not escalate it.
However, the feds saw differently, charging him in a March 3, 2016, indictment as a midlevel leader and organizer of the Bundy standoff, who, among other things: 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 on and about the disputed grazing lands and Bundy ranch in southeastern Nevada.
The original indictment charged 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, for which he could have been sentenced to life in federal prison.
He was arrested on March 3, 2016, as several FBI vehicles full of armed agents in full tactical gear with weapons drawn swarmed his Rochester condo.
The Bundy standoff was an armed confrontation between protesters and law enforcement that developed from a 20-year legal dispute between the Bureau of Land Management and Nevada cattle rancher Bundy over grazing rights on federal land in southeastern Nevada.
Among other things Susan DeLemus disputes regarding her husband's arrest and indictment is that the charges against him are misleading in that he wasn't at the standoff, arriving the day after by which time the standoff had de-escalated.

Susan DeLemus expressed concern earlier this month that Navarro had wide latitude in her sentencing authority, but still expressed "shock" on Wednesday that it was so harsh.

Susan and Jerry DeLemus' 13th wedding anniversary was Monday, making the whole sentencing ordeal even tougher, she told The Lebanon Voice.

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