Bureau of Land Management and US Forestry Service Racketeering Organizations--Sheriff Defends Wayne Hage, Threatens Force

 Congressman Maurice Hinchey recently proposed to turn the Hudson Valley into a federal park.  The legal ramifications of this proposal have been ignored by the area's woefully uninformed media. Mike Marnell forwarded this series of videos, which illustrates how federal regulation can easily escalate into ugly violence against landowners. This video appears on Daily Paul.com.

In the video Sheriff Tony DeMeo describes that the Bureau of Land Management and the Forestry Service attempted to steal Wayne Hage's, a rancher's, water rights in order to stop him from ranching.  This resulted in a law suit.  During the course of the law suit Hage was surrounded by armed federal agents who violently stole his cattle. In 2006 Hage died but the law suit continues.  Special Agent Matthews tried to seize Hage's cattle again following Hage's death.  Demeo describes Matthews as ignorant of basic concepts of the US Constitution.

In response to repeated threats of violence from the two federal agencies, Sheriff Demeo told them that  he would enforce the Constitution.  He told the a US Forestry Service official that he would arrest their agents if they illegally harassed Hage.  A US attorney threatened DeMeo with arrest.  DeMeo told his deputy that if the US government used armed agents he would employ his swat team against them and arrest them.  DeMeo had to explain basics about civics, specifically about the Bill of Rights, to ignorant federal employees. DeMeo told them that they could not seize cattle without a court order. BLM attempted to serve Hage with a bogus summons for leaving garbage in a dumpster on his own property.

Surprisingly, a federal court gave the land rights to Hage (the spirit of racketeering has not reached the lower level federal courts...yet) and awarded him $4 million.  The federal government continues to issue trespassing summonses against Hage's son and heir, the rightful owner of the land.  DeMeo asserts that the case is related to an attempt by the federal government to monopolize control of food production.

In 2004 BLM petitioned Nevada counties to give them law enforcement authority.  Sheriff DeMeo opposed this proposal to breach the Tenth Amendment.  This is the kind of affront to expect in the wake of a federalized Hudson Valley Park.