[pct-l] Defiant rancher once more loses grazing case, may now

Not PCT, but a subject close to some
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  Defiant rancher once more loses grazing case, may now go to jail

  By Scott Sonner 
  ASSOCIATED PRESS 

  November 18, 2000 

  RENO -- A Nevada rancher who challenged federal authority over the
national forests was found guilty yesterday of illegally grazing his cattle
on government land, and prosecutors said they'll ask that he be sent to
jail.

  Ruby Valley rancher Cliff Gardner has battled the government for six
years, defying orders to remove his livestock from a national forest even
after losing an appeal to the 9th Circuit Court of Appeals.

  U.S. District Judge Howard McKibben in Reno found Gardner guilty yesterday
of two counts of failure to remove unauthorized livestock from the national
forest system, each punishable by up to six months in jail and a $5,000
fine.

  The Justice Department sought the criminal misdemeanor charges after
federal agents allegedly caught Gardner's cattle on the Humboldt-Toiyabe
National Forest near Elko, Nev., again this past April and July.

  The Forest Service revoked Gardner's grazing permit in 1994 for violation
of the terms and conditions outlining allowed uses of the national forest
lands adjacent to his Ruby Valley ranch.

  The Justice Department won an injunction in U.S. District Court a year
later to keep Gardner's cattle out of the national forest.

  Yet Gardner refused to recognize the Forest Service's control of the land
and challenged federal ownership in an appeal to the circuit court in San
Francisco.

  The 9th Circuit reaffirmed the government ownership of the land in 1996,
said federal officials.

  Copyright 2000 Union-Tribune Publishing Co. 
http://www.signonsandiego.com/news/uniontrib/sat/news/news_1n18rancher.html



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