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Wednesday, March 31, 2004
Rancher Wins Release From Jail
By Rene Romo
Journal Southern Bureau
LAS CRUCES— It took three tries, but embattled Catron County rancher Kit Laney on Tuesday finally won release from jail pending his trial on federal assault and obstruction of justice charges.
Senior U.S. District Judge John Edwards Conway granted a defense motion to release Laney into the custody of Otero Mesa rancher Bob Jones, but it won't happen until next week when a court-ordered roundup of the rancher's cattle will be roughly 95 percent complete.
Jones' ranch is more than a five-hour drive east of the Diamond Bar allotment in the Gila National Forest.
Laney was arrested March 14 after he allegedly charged his horse at several Forest Service officers who were guarding the rancher's impounded cattle at the MeOwn Fire Base.
A grand jury last week returned an eight-count indictment charging Laney with two counts of obstruction of justice, five counts of assaulting and interfering with federal officers, and one count of interfering with a court order.
Laney will be released at 9 a.m. April 8.
The Forest Service since early March has rounded up 415 of Laney's livestock pursuant to a federal court order that found the rancher in contempt of court for grazing his livestock on the Diamond Bar allotment without a Forest Service permit.
''Let me tell you,'' Conway said to Laney, ''you foul up and marshals will be all over you like you can't believe. Don't leave Bob Jones' ranch. You just don't want to foul up, because it will be bad.''
''I give you my word that I won't,'' Kit Laney said.
Conway's decision came after an appeal of two earlier rulings by U.S. Magistrate Judge Karen Molzen. Molzen twice refused to release Laney from Doña Ana County Detention Center because of her concern he would try to return to the Gila National Forest and disrupt the roundup.
Despite expressing concerns that Laney ''just kind of thumbs his nose'' at federal judges, Conway said he knew and trusted Jones, the man defense counsel proposed Laney be released to. Laney will wear an electronic surveillance device and will not be permitted to leave Jones' ranch or drive any vehicles.
Conway noted during the hearing that he once represented Jones when he was a private attorney working in Alamogordo, but assistant U.S. Attorney Gregg Wormuth did not object to Conway ruling on the case.
Conway scheduled Laney's trial for May 3 in Albuquerque.
In a related matter, an attorney for Laney and his ex-wife and ongoing ranching partner, Sherry Farr, will seek an injunction in state district court in Alamogordo to halt the Forest Service's sale of the impounded cattle.
Laney and Farr argue that a memorandum of understanding, signed by the state Livestock Board executive director with the Forest Service, to permit the sale of Laney's cattle is invalid, because it was not approved by the full Livestock Board.
The Forest Service announced that on Thursday it will end the temporary closure of the 147,000-acre Diamond Bar allotment. The allotment was closed to the public during the cattle impoundment.