Idaho man jailed for role in Nevada ranch standoff suing US

An Idaho man who served more than four years in federal custody for his part in an armed 2014 standoff against federal agents near states’ rights figure Cliven Bundy’s Nevada ranch is suing the U.S. government and prosecutors for damages.

Todd Engel seeks $100 million in a civil rights and conspiracy complaint filed Sept. 7 in U.S. District Court in Las Vegas, where a judge in January 2018 found flagrant prosecutorial misconduct and dismissed criminal charges against Bundy and more than a dozen other defendants, including Engel.

“It’s important that people have access to the facts,” said Craig Marquiz, the Las Vegas-area attorney who authored the lawsuit accusing the government, three lead prosecutors, an FBI agent and four Bureau of Land Management officials of fabricating the criminal case that led to Engel being branded in the media as a domestic terrorist.

The a 48-page document details the prosecution of 19 people that ultimately led U.S. District Judge Gloria Navarro to find government conduct “outrageous” and to declare “a universal sense of justice has been violated.”

Officials with the FBI, Bureau of Land Management and U.S. attorney’s office in Las Vegas declined Tuesday to comment about the lawsuit.

Government prosecutors maintained that Bundy racked up more than $1.1 million in unpaid grazing fees and penalties by March 2014 by letting his cows roam on public property.

Federal judges granted land managers court orders to remove Bundy cattle from arid land dotted with scrub brush and petroglyphs near the Virgin River in what is now Gold Butte National Monument.