FBI agent wounded by ‘Indiana Jones’style booby trap

PORTLAND: A former southern Oregon property owner has been charged after authorities say an FBI agent sent to the property was shot by a boobytrapped wheelchair.

Law enforcement officers responded to the home in the small town of Williams on September 7, at the request of a real estate lawyer tasked with selling the property, The Oregonian/OregonLive reported.

A criminal complaint filed in US District Court in Medford says officers found traps throughout the property, from spike strips to a circular hot tub turned on its side and rigged to roll over anyone who triggered a tripwire.

‘‘[It was] much like a scene from the movie Indiana Jones: Raiders of the Lost Ark, in which actor Harrison Ford is forced to outrun a giant stone boulder that he inadvertently triggered by a boobytrap switch,’’ the complaint said.

After making it past the hot tub, a bomb squad and FBI agent approached the property’s manufactured home and blasted open the fortified front door.

Inside the home, a wheelchair outfitted with a fishing line, shotgun ammunition and other items was pushed and triggered the explosion that wounded the agent, court documents said.

An Xray found a .410gauge shotgun pellet in the agent’s leg.

Authorities said the makeshift weapons were created by Gregory Rodvelt (66), who was forced to forfeit his property as part of an elder abuse case involving his mother. — AP