Douglas Ranch Rescue Arrest : AZ IMC

Wednesday, November 26, 2003
Ranch Rescue member held on federal rap
FBI says he fled Texas to avoid prosecution
By Ignacio Ibarra
ARIZONA DAILY STAR
DOUGLAS - A member of Ranch Rescue who says he owns the Cochise County ranch where the volunteer patrol organization is conducting its "Operation Thunderbird" was arrested Tuesday morning on a felony charge of flight to avoid prosecution, officials said.

Casey Nethercott, one of two Ranch Rescue volunteers accused of unlawfully detaining and beating a Salvadoran couple in Texas last March, is being held without bond at a federal detention facility in Tucson, said Susan Herskovits, an FBI spokeswoman. Charges against the other volunteer have been dropped.

Federal officials plan on extraditing Nethercott, a convicted felon, to Jim Hogg County, Texas, to face charges of unlawful imprisonment and weapons violations, she said.

Nethercott and Ranch Rescue are also named in a lawsuit filed by the Southern Poverty Law Center and the Mexican American Legal Defense Fund.

"This is what our own government does to its citizens who try to protect themselves and their property from criminals," said Ranch Rescue spokesman Jack Foote, who was on the Texas ranch the day members were accused of mistreating the Salvadoran couple.

Foote, who said the Texas abuse claim is unfounded, called Tuesday's arrest politically motivated and intended to intimidate Ranch Rescue volunteers.

It won't work, Foote said. "We're going to bring in more volunteers, lots more. We're going to fill this place with volunteers and protect this home until the owner comes back."

Foote said he worries about the health of Nethercott, who he said needs insulin.
Nethercott requires a special diet and medication, which Foote said was denied to Nethercott the last time he was jailed in Texas.

Douglas police assisted the FBI and U.S. Immigration and Customs Enforcement officials in making the arrest as Nethercott pulled into a Douglas gas station, said Detective Mark Wilkinson, a Douglas police spokesman.

Nethercott had just pulled into the station when his vehicle was surrounded by squad cars. Law-enforcement officers were screaming orders at him and pointing their weapons, said Brian Patterson, a Ranch Rescue volunteer who was with Nethercott at the time of the arrest.

Patterson said he watched as Nethercott was surrounded and forced to the ground.
"After that I didn't see anything, because they had me on the ground, too. They took me to an interrogation room somewhere and questioned me for about an hour before they let me go," said Patterson, who was carrying a shotgun and back on patrol with other Ranch Rescue volunteers later in the day.

The group's "Operation Thunderbird" is ongoing at the former Puzzi Ranch, where the Texas-based group has been joined by a contingent of Missouri Militia patrolling private property they say is being invaded by criminal trespassers - some of the hundreds of illegal entrants who cross through the Douglas area each night.

Nethercott has told numerous people, including Cochise County sheriff's deputies, that he owns the ranch and adjacent property. But there is no record of the transactions with the Cochise County assessor's or recorder's offices. Records show the property is owned by Richard L. Puzzi Jr. and Renee L. Puzzi.

At the time of Nethercott's arrest, the Cochise County Sheriff's Department had opened its own investigation after deputies responding to calls complaining of gunfire and loose dogs had seen Nethercott, a felon, in possession of a semiautomatic handgun.