The sheriff of Gem County, Idaho has told a local hospital suing Ammon Bundy that it will no longer deliver court orders to the noted ammosexual anti-government rancher, saying doing so puts his deputies at risk of violence and physical harm, the Idaho Stateman reports.
Gem County Sheriff Donnie Wunder said it cannot serve Bundy papers in the defamation case St. Luke’s Health System filed against him because of Bundy’s increasing hostility to deputies who have previously interacted with the family and a group of followers camped around the ranch. Wunder said he spoke to Bundy on the phone April 10th, and Bundy complained that he was fed up. “Mr. Bundy went on to also say that he is at his breaking point,” Wunder said. “By the tone in his voice, I believe he is,” adding, “In my opinion, if this continues, there is potential for someone to get hurt.”
On the day Bundy and the sheriff spoke, Bundy posted a blog post recounting an interaction with deputies a few days before. “I could not believe the audacity of these deputies,” Bundy wrote. “When I saw that one of them had actually come into the covered storage section of the shop, I began to yell at him to get off my property. I came out the door near him and chased him out of the storage area demanding that he get in his vehicle and leave.” Bundy went on to claim a different deputy appeared to want to stoke a confrontation before, Bundy claimed, he ordered the deputies off the property.
The hospital system has asked the state Supreme Court to order the sheriff’s office or another entity to serve Bundy with required notices in the lawsuit. The plaintiffs are suing Bundy and a member of one of Bundy’s front groups, Diego Rodriguez, for defamation for saying the hospital kidnapped Rodriguez’s infant child after hospital staff reported the child to state child protective services after the child was brought to the hospital underweight and apparently malnourished, and the child’s parents were unresponsive to follow-ups from health care providers.
The hospital system said in a filing with the Idaho Supreme Court because it had no luck contracting with a private process server to deliver the papers to Bundy, with firms turning down the contract for fear of threats, harassment, violence and harm. Because Idaho does not allow process servers to enter private property, Bundy had previous servers detained as trespassers; agencies reportedly expressed concern that he would escalate his defenses.
Bundy had previously stated that he would meet anyone who tried to take his property away at “the front door with my, you know, friends and a shotgun,” in his latest threat of violence.