Activist fined for oil bidding

SALT LAKE CITY — The government is demanding $81,000 from a college student who bid for oil-and-gas parcels near Utah's national parks without paying in an act of environmental protest.

Tim DeChristopher's lawyers received the bill Friday, a day after he was indicted on a pair of felony auction-rigging charges. The bill was characterized by one of the lawyers and Bureau of Land Management officials as a demand for a civil penalty unrelated to the criminal proceedings.

At the Dec. 19 sale, DeChristopher grabbed a bidder's paddle, drove up prices and won 22,000 acres of land for safekeeping. He has acknowledged he didn't have the intention or ability to pay for his winning bids, which totaled $1.7 million.

A federal grand jury indicted DeChristopher, a 27-year-old University of Utah economics major, on one felony count of interfering with an auction and another of making false representations.

U.S. Attorney Brett Tolman said each charge was punishable by 0-5 years in prison. He later sought to diminish the possibility that DeChristopher would draw anything close to the maximum punishment.

Tolman told The Salt Lake Tribune that without a criminal record, DeChristopher faced no more than a few years if any of imprisonment, rather than a full 10 years, the maximum for a conviction on both charges. A judge would make the decision.

Tolman also said he was willing to negotiate a plea bargain, presumably on lesser charges. He made the offer to DeChristopher's lawyers the day of his indictment and during an open news conference.

One of the lawyers, Pat Shea, told The Associated Press that he has asked Tolman for a specific proposal. One consideration for lawyers on both sides is finding an appropriate misdemeanor charge that can be used.

DeChristopher is scheduled to be arraigned April 28.

DeChristopher said he has raised around $100,000 from a broad range of supporters. Weeks after the Dec. 19 auction, he offered to make a down payment on his bids, but was flatly rejected by the BLM, which said it was too late.

The fine the BLM issued Friday was unrelated to any deposit or money DeChristopher owes on his bids. It opens a possible civil claim that DeChristopher can contest in an administrative appeal, according to BLM officials.

DeChristopher isn't the first bidder at a federal oil-and-gas auction to fail to come up with the money, but he's the first to face criminal prosecution for it, said Shea, who was BLM director during the Clinton administration.