Rick B said:
Well, apparantly you thought wrong. If it was on Lower Helldorado then the driver of the Jeep would be the one on trial, because those people would've been fully justified in confronting a group who were trespassing on their property.
Well, apperantly YOU thought wrong
By Lisa Church
Special to The Tribune
MOAB -- John Rzeczycki found out the hard way last weekend that man is sometimes no match for machine.
The Moab landowner says an off-road driver assaulted him when he told her that she and her group were on an illegal trail. He stepped in front of the woman's stopped Jeep and pointed out a sign posted by the U.S. Bureau of Land Management that prohibits off-road use in the area of San Juan County, 14 miles southeast of Moab. The trail is about 300 feet from Rzeczycki's property.
He says the woman inched the Jeep toward him, trapping his foot beneath a tire, then slowly drove forward, pinning his leg beneath the wheel. The driver stopped, and did not back up until a friend of Rzeczycki's approached carrying a stick, and shouted for her to move the vehicle.
No one from the woman's group offered assistance, he said.
"I was looking her right in the face and she just kept moving. She didn't say one thing to me," Rzeczycki said.
He is also upset that the driver was not cited. Instead, he said, the San Juan sheriff's deputy who investigated threatened to charge Rzeczycki with disturbing the peace. Rzeczycki is consulting with an attorney and will "certainly press charges."
San Juan authorities have a different take.
San Juan County Attorney Craig Halls said he has discussed the incident with the investigating officer and that several witnesses in the off-road group said the driver did not intend to hurt Rzeczycki. "I have to determine whether this was an accident or intentional. You can commit an assault with a vehicle, but you always have to have, in a criminal case, an intent," he said.
Rzeczycki said he and his partner, Kiley Miller, were also verbally assaulted and threatened by off-road drivers
in the rocky wash known as "Lower Helldorado," which is on their property. They closed the area two weeks ago after a judge ruled that a fence they installed was legal.
On Friday, someone destroyed the fence, scrawled a death threat on their "Private Property" sign, and hung a noose on a nearby tree. When the couple confronted several drivers a day later, one charged his vehicle at Miller while she was photographing his license plate, and another began running down small trees.
A deputy investigated but did not file charges.
