U.S News

SALT LAKE CITY – A 29-year-old man accused of hijacking bids at a federal sell in visit to protect digit domestic parks from oil-and-gas drillers was due to testify weekday in his own defense.

Tim DeChristopher is accused of placing imitation bids on more than a dozen leases near Utah's Arches and Canyonlands domestic parks to essay to separate up prices. He has pleaded not guilty, but doesn't dispute the facts of the housing and says he expects to be convicted.

The time wild guide faces up to 10 eld in situation and $750,000 in fines if convicted on charges of interfering with and making simulated representations at a polity auction.

Federal prosecutors called him a destroyer during inaugural statements Tuesday, locution that DeChristopher knowingly settled the bids at the 2008 sell without some intention of paying.

The trial isn't most "Big Oil" or federal government, Assistant U.S. Attorney Scott Romney said.

But fellow environmentalists who arrange from celebrities to activists hit made DeChristopher a sept hero of their movement, demand that DeChristopher was standing up to a federal authority that desecrated environmental laws by retentive the auction.

On Tuesday, a special businessperson at the Bureau of Land Management, which ran the auction, recounted how DeChristopher stood discover among the bidders vying for the leases.

Daniel Love said he apace noticed DeChristopher, mainly for how his shabby clothing differed from the others.

During the auction, DeChristopher kept looking at the entranceway at the backwards of the room. DeChristopher said he had planned to create a disruption, but backed off because there were likewise some accumulation enforcement agents, according to Love.

DeChristopher's bids began with smaller amounts, one at $500, then a after one for $25,000. By the end, he owed $1.7 meg on leases totaling 22,500 acres around the digit parks.

"At this point, he was in it to intend it. There was no regard for ceiling price," Love said.

DeChristopher believed the invitation manoeuvre worked because he saw another bidders leaving the auction, Love said. DeChristopher's invitation increased the prices by a amount of $300,000 on most 20 of 131 parcels being auctioned that day, Love added.

DeChristopher after said he knew what he did was wrong and that he was embattled to accept the punishment, Love said.

A University of Utah economics enrollee at the time, DeChristopher had offered to cover the bill with an cyberspace fundraising campaign. The polity refused to accept some of the money after the fact.

A federal determine after closed some of the leases from being issued.

Federal prosecutors say DeChristopher is the exclusive person ever live with imperfectness to attain good on bids at a lease sell of public lands in Utah. They hit offered plea deals over the time digit years, but he opted to go to trial.

His accumulation attorneys declined to attain inaugural statements Tuesday, and a determine said the commission could intend the housing as primeval as Wednesday.

The housing has become a symbol of solidarity for environmentalists, including actress Daryl Hannah, who rallied in his support Monday, and others who marched outside suite Tuesday.

"With this case, the polity is trying to inform a warning and counsel activists," said Flora Bernard, spokeswoman for the Salt Lake City-based Peaceful Uprisings, an environmental group that DeChristopher co-founded.

"By reaching discover here, we are display that we are not intimidated," she said.

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