Malheur Refuge standoff defendant gets home detention

PORTLAND, Ore. (AP) – An Oregon man who took part in the occupation of the Malheur National Wildlife Refuge has been sentenced to six months of home detention.

Geoff Stanek pleaded guilty to conspiracy months before the 2016 trial in which occupation leader Ammon Bundy and six others were found not guilty. Stanek’s early acceptance of responsibility was one reason prosecutor Craig Gabriel recommended a sentence that did not include prison time.

Stanek was among the more than two dozen men and women who answered Bundy’s call to occupy the refuge to protest federal control of Western lands and the imprisonment of two ranchers convicted of setting fires.

Another occupier, Eric Lee Flores, was scheduled to be sentenced Monday, but he got mixed up on the date and never arrived from his home in Washington state.

The hearing was rescheduled.