FBI agent pleads not guilty to lying about shooting at rancher in Oregon standoff

An FBI agent pleaded not guilty Wednesday to charges of lying about firing two shots at Robert “LaVoy” Finicum, one of the leaders of the armed standoff at a wildlife refuge in Oregon last year.

W. Joseph Astarita, stone-faced and wearing a dark-gray pinstriped suit, entered the plea in a two-minute arraignment before U.S. Magistrate Janice M. Stewart. Stewart ordered that he remain free pending trial.

Astarita, a member of the FBI’s hostage response team, faces three counts of making false statements to FBI supervisors and two counts of obstruction of justice on suspicion of lying to Oregon State Police about shooting at Finicum. The agent is not accused of firing the fatal shots that killed Finicum after a hectic police chase on Jan. 26, 2016.

He declined to comment after the hearing.

The U.S. Justice Department’s Office of the Inspector General has been probing the circumstances of Finicum’s shooting death since investigators revealed their suspicions in March 2016 that an FBI agent with the agency’s elite response team had fired at him and failed to admit it during multiple interviews.

Finicum, a 55-year-old Arizona rancher, had traveled to the Malheur National Wildlife Refuge near Burns, Ore., to join armed occupiers who had taken over the federal refuge on Jan. 2, 2016, to protest the government’s wildlands policies and its treatment of ranchers.

Finicum’s wife, Jeanette, 57, told The Times that she was grateful for the indictment, yet not satisfied. “I believe there’s more that needs to be done; there were other officers involved in the coverup,” said Finicum, who has taken over her husband’s ranch. Finicum left behind 12 children and 25 grandchildren.

The Oregon takeover culminated in a tense standoff with law enforcement, who surrounded the refuge and ultimately peacefully arrested the heavily armed occupiers — with the exception of Finicum, who had previously hinted at his willingness to die for the armed occupation.

Oregon State Police and the FBI’s hostage rescue team, which included Astarita, had tried to arrest Finicum on a rural stretch of highway as he led a two-truck convoy filled with some of the occupation’s leaders.

But after initially stopping when pulled over by law enforcement, Finicum sped away, then crashed his truck into a snowbank and nearly hit a law enforcement officer as he apparently tried to avoid a police roadblock. Finicum staggered out of his truck and was fatally shot by state troopers while apparently reaching for a loaded gun inside his jacket.

All of the troopers’ shots were deemed justifiable, “and, in fact, necessary,” Malheur County Dist. Atty. Dan Norris said last year after reviewing the shooting.

But investigators were concerned that they could not account for the shots apparently fired by an FBI agent that missed Finicum and left a bullet hole in the roof of his truck. In a video taken by one of the passengers inside Finicum’s truck, an apparent shot can be seen hitting the roof of the vehicle and striking a window a moment after Finicum left the truck and had his arms lifted in the air.

“Of particular concern to all of us is that the FBI operators did not disclose their shots to our investigators, nor did they disclose specific actions they took after the shooting,” Deschutes County Sheriff L. Shane Nelson said at a news conference in March, without specifying to which actions he was referring.

Finicum’s death inflamed anti-government sentiment. One Medford, Ore., man, John Martin Roos, 62, was convicted in November of possessing pipe bombs and posting online threats to kill President Obama and FBI agents after telling investigators that he was upset about Finicum’s death.

Like Finicum’s wife, activist Gavin Seim, who was aligned with the occupiers, said an indictment for obstruction was not enough. Seim called the FBI’s response team “assassins” and likened them to previous government units at deadly government standoffs at Waco, Texas, and Ruby Ridge, Idaho.

“A man was murdered, assassinated on the side of the road,” Seim said in a video on Facebook. “I’m sorry guys. This is not so awesome. This is not a victory when the terrorists of the planet, of our country, of our people commit crimes. … Every police report in America is false. That’s the norm. This guy just got noticed.”