Eric J. Parker, 34, and O. Scott Drexler, 47, both from Idaho,
each faces up to a year in federal prison and a $100,000 fine for taking part
in the standoff, which became a rallying cry for right-wing extremists
challenging U.S. government authority in the American West.
Both defendants
are scheduled to be sentenced on Feb. 2, 2018, federal prosecutors in Las Vegas
said in a statement announcing the guilty pleas.
The
two men, accused of threatening law enforcement officers with guns, were
originally tried on several more serious charges for which they faced at least
57 years in prison if convicted.
Defense
lawyers argued that the two men, along with four co-defendants, were exercising
constitutionally protected rights to assembly and to bear arms, casting the
showdown as a patriotic act of civil disobedience against government
over-reach.
Although
two of the six defendants were convicted, four others, including Parker and
Drexler, won a mistrial in April when jurors failed to reach a unanimous
verdict in the case against them.
A
retrial in August ended with the jury finding Parker and Drexler not guilty on
most of the charges, but deadlocked on other counts. Rather than seek another
retrial, prosecutors negotiated a deal with Parker and Drexler to settle the
unresolved charges.
The
pair ended up pleading guilty to one count each of obstructing the federal
court order that had led U.S. officers to seize 400 of Bundy’s cattle after he
refused to pay the required fees to graze his livestock on public lands.
Parker
and Drexler were among hundreds of supporters, many of them armed, who rallied
to Bundy’s cause. Outgunned federal agents retreated rather than risk bloodshed
in the ensuing standoff near Bunkerville, Nevada, and Bundy’s followers
prevailed in recovering his herd.
But Bundy and
others who participated in the confrontation, including four of his sons, were
later charged with conspiracy, assault and other offenses. The elder Bundy,
sons Ammon and Ryan Bundy, and a third supporter face trial next week.
The two Bundy
brothers and five other people were acquitted in a separate federal court trial
in Portland last October of conspiracy charges stemming from an armed takeover
of a U.S. wildlife center in Oregon in 2016.