Activist Ammon Bundy declares bankruptcy

PORTLAND, Ore. (KOIN) -- Ammon Bundy, the far-right activist who led the takeover of a federal wildlife refuge in eastern Oregon, has declared bankruptcy after loss in a defamation suit against an Idaho hospital last year required him to pay over $50 million in damages.

As reported by the Columbian, in the year since, Bundy had reportedly lost his home and went into hiding in Utah.

The defamation suit filed by St. Luke’s Regional Health accused Bundy and Diego Rodriguez of making defamatory statements against the hospital and its employees after Rodriguez’s infant grandson was removed from his family for several days and taken to St. Luke’s, due to severe malnutrition concerns.

Bundy responded by urging his followers to protest at the hospital and at the homes of child protection service workers, law enforcement officers and others involved in the child protection case. Rodriguez wrote on his website that the baby was “kidnapped,” and suggested that the state and people involved in the case were engaged in “child trafficking” for profit.

The hospital claimed Bundy and Rodriguez orchestrated a smear campaign against it.

In addition to the defamation suit, Bundy and his family became well known for their 41-day armed occupation of the Malheur National Wildlife Refuge near Burns, Oregon in 2016 to protest the arson convictions of two ranchers who set fires on federal land where they had been grazing their cattle. Bundy was acquitted of criminal charges in the incident.

In a video posted to social media, Bundy first informed his followers of his filing for Chapter 7 bankruptcy on Wednesday.

"I've been very good with my finances my entire life," he said. "Bankruptcy is something that it's completely against my nature. But in this circumstance, I basically have really no choice."

He goes on to state his belief that the bankruptcy court will see this as political retribution.

"I mean, we've got people like Rudy Giuliani, right? There's a whole slew of them," he said. "You know, probably by the time they get done with Trump, he's probably going to have to go bankrupt. They just, you know, they've used the courts for their political, to punish their political enemies and the courts have allowed them."

Bundy added he hopes a bankruptcy judge will discharge his debt, which is now up to $53 million dollars, according to court documents.

“I know the Lord wants me to go bankrupt,” he said. “And I think he wants to give the bankruptcy court the chance to rectify this.”