Days after President Trump commuted the prison sentence of his associate Roger Stone, supporters of a Rochester man serving a seven-year term for his role in a 2014 armed standoff in Nevada are asking for the same executive action.
In 2016, Jerry DeLemus pled guilty to two charges stemming from his involvement in an armed standoff with federal agents at the ranch of Cliven Bundy.
A group of his supporters gathered Monday in the driveway of Republican Senate candidate Don Bolduc, a retired U.S. Army General, to call on Trump to release DeLemus, who is being held in a minimum-security facility in Ayer, Massachusetts.
“I implore the President of the United States, please, sir, we saw you do a commutation of a sentence of Mr. Stone. Please, please, do the same for Jerry Delamus,” Bolduc told reporters.
DeLemus maintains that his involvement in the Nevada standoff was solely to keep the peace. His supporters say he agreed to plead guilty to the federal charges to spare longer prison sentences for others who joined Bundy. A judge later denied his request to alter his plea.
The armed standoff centered on the U.S. Bureau of Land Management’s efforts to round up cows near Bundy’s ranch due to unpaid grazing fees, according to the Associated Press. DeLemus was one of 19 people arrested for their involvement.
Susan DeLemus, a former state representative, said her husband is in good health, with his release scheduled for the spring of 2022.
She said she’s heard no response from the Trump Administration regarding a possible commutation of her husband’s sentence.
“We are people of justice, and people of unalienable rights,” she said. “And for him to be in prison is not justice at all. It is injustice, and it needs to be fixed.”
