An Oregon man who injured an FBI bomb technician by boobytrapping his home after losing ownership of it in a lawsuit has been sentenced to 12 years in jail.
The punishment was handed down after 72-year-old Gregory Lee Rodvelt was convicted in June of assaulting a federal officer and discharging a firearm during a crime of violence.
In a statement on Wednesday, the U.S. Attorney’s Office for the district of Oregon called the lengthy jail sentence “a just punishment for a serious crime.”
“Fueled by anger and bitterness, this defendant boobytrapped a property in southern Oregon with intent to seriously injure someone,” Assistant U.S. Attorney Nathan Lichvarcik said.
“Unfortunately, his trap worked, and he injured an FBI bomb technician. … Today’s sentence is a just punishment for a serious crime,” Lichvarcik said.
The horrifying crime dates back to September 2018, when Rodvelt lost a $2.1 million elder abuse lawsuit filed by his then-90-year-old mother. He was then forced to forfeit his property, The Oregonian reported.
The real estate attorney overseeing the sale called the FBI after seeing a sign warning the house was “protected by improvised devices.”
According to federal prosecutors, “after Rodvelt learned that a receiver had been appointed to sell the property, he proceeded to boobytrap it.”
Authorities said there were multiple, elaborate bombs placed all around the 15-acre property.
Should it be illegal to rig your home with traps?
“When the bomb technicians arrived at the property, they observed a minivan blocking the gate. The technicians found steel animal traps affixed to a gate post and under the hood of the minivan,” the U.S. Attorney’s Office said.
“They also located homemade spike strips, which the receiver had previously run over. As the technician neared the residence, they observed a hot tub that had been placed on its side and rigged in a manner that when a gate was opened it would activate a mechanical trigger causing the spa to roll toward the person who had opened the gate.”
In the garage, bomb technicians found a modified rat trap connected to the garage door so it would be tripped when the door was opened.
When FBI officials entered the residence, they found a wheelchair in the center of the front entryway.
“When the wheelchair was bumped, it triggered a homemade shotgun device that discharged a .410 shotgun shell that struck the FBI bomb technician below the knee,” authorities said. “The group administered first aid to the wounded technician and transported him to a local hospital.”
Indiana Jones fan Gregory Lee Rodvelt, 72, is jailed for 12 years for rigging his home with ‘intricate and deadly booby traps’ after FBI bomb technician was hospitalized https://t.co/D6hao5tKuu pic.twitter.com/5YPPjxVQl9
— Daily Mail Online (@MailOnline) December 9, 2023
Kieran Ramsey, the special agent in charge of the FBI Portland Field Office, said Rodvelt deserved to be punished because it was clear he intended to kill or cause grave bodily harm.
“This individual went through great efforts to set intricate and deadly concealed traps to prevent FBI agents from doing their job. These were no joke,” Ramsey said. “Mr. Rodvelt knew he was breaking the law and his reprehensible actions are what landed him this sentence.”
This mind-boggling atrocity has a number of disturbing aspects.
One is that Rodvelt was sued by his own mother for elder abuse.
Another is the total disdain for life he exhibited when he concocted lethal contraptions around his property that he knew could maim or kill innocent people.
The staggering moral decay metastasizing in today’s “civilized society” is both eye-opening and disheartening.
