Artifacts, Tortoises and Taxes

  and Daniel Peter Love

What do they have in common?  More than you ever imagined.

The places were different; Utah and Nevada  and the time range is great, but two events tied them all together.  

On December 28, 2016, outgoing President Barack Obama signed into law a proclamation declaring two new National Monuments, Bears Ears in Utah and Gold Butte in Nevada, thereby withdrawing 1.6 million areas of land that would now have much more limited use for individual citizens or  developments of any kind. Governors of both states and residents opposed the action but congressmen were not in agreement. It was done in a clandestine move over the Christmas Holiday using a very outdated 1906 Antiquities Act which attempted to stop grave robbing of archaeological sites and set penalties of $500 or less, and 90 days or less jail time for persons who “appropriate, excavate, injure, or destroy any historic or prehistoric ruin or monument.”  While that was an honorable intention in the days when a few people were ransacking historic and prehistoric sites and graves for the treasures that they contained, and the Act provided for scientific removal for museums and gave the executive power to the President to create Monuments to preserve “historic landmarks, historic and prehistoric structures, and other objects of historic or scientific interest” to protect them, it was not meant to circumvent Congressional power to enlargeand manage the National Park System.

Did these two large areas contain significant features that were not already protected by some other law or branch of government?  They did not.

They are also tied together by Daniel Peter Love of the Bureau of Lane Management (BLM).

 When he was involved in and around San Juan County, Utah in 2009 in a sting known as Operation Cerberus, he made quite a name for himself, and his activities led to three people, including the local physician in Blanding, Utah, Dr. James Redd.  The BLM spent hundreds of thousands of dollars trying to prosecute a hypothetical ring of people dealing in the black market of Anasazi artifacts.  Unfortunately, their main witness also committed suicide before the trials because he was so horrified at what he had done to entrap his friends of many years in exchange forthe money he was paid to do so.  A few people took plea deals rather than face a trial, and it was just a handfull of misdemeanors with a few felonies, but BLM was so impressed with Agent Love, they promoted him to Agent in Charge of law enforcement in both the Utah and Nevada District.

Did I mention politics yet?  He was appointed by a new BLM Director, Neil Kornze, and Kornze had been the Senior Administrative Assistant for Senate Majority Leader from Nevada, Harry Reid, but moved on when Reid decided not to seek re-election in 2016.  Reid, however already had an axe to grind as he left, because in 2014 he had pushed the BLM to remove all of the cattle grazing on a grazing allotment of 300,000 plus acres, known as Gold Butte.  We will discuss more of that in the Gold Butte Blog, but back to Daniel Love and the BLM.  Reid was determined to pay the Bundy family back for stopping him in 2014, so, since most of the Bundy Family was in jail awaiting trials about the 2014 "Bundy Ranch Stand-Off" when BLM, led by Love tried to rustle the cattle that belonged to Bundy and sell them, and what better way to pay people back when they are being illegally held month after month awaiting a "speedy" trial, than to have the grazing area declared a National Monument by President Barack Obama two days after Christmas when Congress had gone home for the holidays.  So they wrote an Executive Order based on the Antiquities Act, that was not applicable to these lands.

And Daniel Love waited to be the star witness against the Bundy family when they  went to trial in May of 2017, over two years after the "Stand-off".  

But Love had some personal problems.  According to Michele Fiore, a former Nevada Assemblywoman, Love had been hired as a security guard to protect foreign visitors attending the Winter Olympics in Salt Lake City, long before he got the job with the Bureau of Land Management, but he was discovered one night in a bar with a woman, when he should have been protecting other people.  So let's just say Love had a "woman problem" that went way back.

Well, it surfaced again in the fall of 2015, when he went out to attend the Burning Man Festival in Nevada's Black Rock Desert, which plays to hold the annual event on remote BLM managed lands.  If you would loosely describe this event, imaging the Woodstock Festival on a parched lakebed littered with pieces of lava rock.  Law Officials say that the event, which typically draws 70,000 paid attendees over Labor Day week, has a history of illegal drugs, assaults, violence and other illegal activities in spite of the largely overall peacefull reputation.  People come to camp out in the desert and meet their friends, listen to music and finally watch a huge wooden effigy burn in a bonfire the last evening. In 2014 there had been a fatality when a woman was hit by a car, so Agent in Charge Daniel Love went to monitor the event.

Love had arrived ahead of the August 30th start date to support demands for better facilities and accommodations for the VIP attendees at the festival.  This included things like showers and flush toilets, respectable accommodations at the venue instead of miles away, betterfood and ice cream and ice water on demand.  He forgot to mention that the VIP's were his father, a girlfriend and someone he had worked with as an Air Marshall in past years, who was looking for a security job. 

The Festival ended on September 7, 2015.  Before the month was out, the BLM Office of the Inspector General had received two complaint about Love from other BM employees and an investigation was launched for Ethical Violations and Misconduct.

By the time the investigative Report was posted on January 30, 2017, Love was found guilty of using his official position to obtain preferential treatment for his family members while attending the Festival.  He had directed five on-duty BLM security officers to escort his family and friend and provide security for them at the event, and provided BLM All-Terrain and  utility vehicles to his VIP'a during the event. He was granted unauthorized access for his group to the Incident Command Post, reserved for firefighters and incendiary experts, which was not against BLM policy, however, but inappropriate.  They also received overnight lodging in the BLM leased facilities with his girlfriend spending the night with him in his BLM assigned trailer.

During the investigation, it was determined that Daniel Love had obtained three full-event Burning Man tickets for “family” members identified as his father, a family friend, and his girlfriend. At the time he bought the tickets, those available to the public had been sold out. The Supervisory Agent used his contacts and relationships with Burning Man officials to obtain the tickets. Federal ethics regulations prohibit soliciting gifts from a prohibited source. See 5 C.F.R. § 2635.202(a). Ethics regulations also prohibit Federal employees from using any authority associated with their public position for the private gain of friends and relatives. See 5 C.F.R. § 2635.702. 

When interviewed, the Event Official said that Love had asked on Saturday afternoon, September 5, for three passes so that his family could attend the 10:00 p.m. Man Burn that night. The Event Official confirmed that access to the inner perimeter was a special privilege and never previously requested by or given to a BLM official or law enforcement official. When asked if the Supervisory Agent’s position had influenced the availability of the passes, the Event Official said that there had been apprehension at first because it seemed “a little strange.” The Official still gave the Supervisory Agent the passes because being gracious was part of the Burning Man culture. Federal ethics regulations prohibit soliciting gifts from a prohibited source. See 5 C.F.R. § 2635.202(a). Ethics regulations also prohibit Federal employees from using any authority associated with their public position for the private gain of friends and relatives. See 5 C.F.R. § 2635.702.

The friend who was looking for a security job was hired as a BLM security agent after Love had managed to have an  additional applicant interviewed and despite the fact that the oral board interviewer felt that the friend had been given the answers to the questions in advance.

During the investigation, Love displayed a lack of candor when interviewed and tried to influence an employees comments prior to an interview.

During the interview, the Event Official indicated that Love was on official duty while in the inner perimeter with his family, as were all law enforcement officers who were on official business while present at the event. A review of Faniel Love's time and attendance records showed that he was on official duty while at the Man Burn during the night of September 5, 2015. The review showed that he claimed 24 hours of official work time for Saturday, September 5, the day of the Man Burn. He also claimed 24 hours of official work time for Sunday, September 6, and again on Monday, September 7.

After being questioned by  a co-worker about having his girlfriend in the passenger seat of his BLM vehicle, Love responded  “You will forget that you saw that.”

A BLM State Ranger said that Love had contacted him after his interview in the investigation, and Love had asked him, “So do I still have a job or did you get me fired?” 

A female BLM employee stated that Daniel Love told her, “If you’re not on my ship, you’re going to sink . . . . So I suggest you get on my ship.” As a result, she feared the Supervisory Agent and kept her office door locked.

and finally,            
                                             DISPOSITION

We are forwarding our report of investigation to the Assistant Secretary for Land and Minerals Management for any action deemed appropriate.

                                                   ###

With three dead people in Utah, a pioneer cattle rancher from Southern Nevada and his thee sons and the journalist covering them, in jail awaiting trial, and now being eliminated a a witness in the 2014 Bundy Stand-Off, not to mention hundreds of thousands of dollars of wasted money in the Operation Cerburus sting,

Daniel Peter Love was demoted to a desk job at the Bureau of Land Management.

Why wasn't he fired? 


Inspector General Report at:
www.EthicalViolationsAndMisconductByBLMOfficials_public