3 Men Arrested in Raid on Island Hunting Camp

Descending in a military helicopter, about 20 heavily armed federal agents and Santa Barbara County sheriff’s deputies raided a Santa Cruz Island hunting ranch and arrested three workers on suspicion of crimes including destruction of Chumash grave sites and stealing human remains, officials said Wednesday.

The airborne assault on the 6,200-acre Gherini family ranch, the last privately owned land in Channel Islands National Park, occurred about midday Tuesday and concluded a two-year undercover investigation during which National Park Service agents posed as hunters, officials said.

While no one was injured during the raids, the amount of force used to serve the search and arrest warrants on two hunting camps prompted criticism from hunters and a spokeswoman for the nonprofit Santa Cruz Island Foundation.

Crystal Graybeel, a 15-year-old sheep hunter who had slept in Tuesday, said officers wearing ski masks and carrying machine guns burst into her room in the late morning.

“They started screaming, ‘Put your hands where we can see them.’ They unzipped my sleeping bag and I had to get face down on the floor and they handcuffed me.”

Spokesmen for the Park Service and Sheriff’s Department said that no unusual force was used, and that agents had to be prepared for anything because the arrests were made at a hunting camp where people were armed.

“When you’re arresting people for committing crimes, you’re not involved in a Boy Scout exercise,” said Deputy Dist. Atty. Darryl Perlin, the Santa Barbara County prosecutor overseeing the case.

The criminal investigation began in January 1995 after a Chumash leader complained of grave robbing on Santa Cruz Island, according to the Park Service. Former employees of Island Adventures, the ranch’s hunting concessionaire, substantiated the claims.

“It’s important that those who would destroy the fabric of our nation’s history, especially destroying ancient Chumash Indian burials, be acutely aware that the National Park Service is determined to protect these resources . . . ,” Tim J. Setnicka, acting superintendent of Channel Islands National Park, said in a press release.

Three ranch workers--volunteer Rick Berg and caretakers Dave Mills and Brian Krantz--were released from Santa Barbara County Jail on Tuesday night after posting bail.

Krantz, 33, is suspected of felony destruction of a Chumash grave site, removal of human remains, and lesser offenses of guiding and serving food without permits.

Mills, 34, and Berg, 35, of Saratoga, face only misdemeanor charges, all relating to illegal guiding or food distribution, except for a possible charge of damaging an object of archeological interest against Mills.

All three suspects said in interviews that they had done nothing wrong and were themselves victims.

“They’re calling me a grave robber, and that is complete fabrication,” said Krantz, a former Santa Barbara resident who is caretaker of one of two hunting centers, Smuggler’s Cove.

Mills, a former Ventura resident and caretaker of a second hunting center called Scorpion ranch three miles away, said he was charged because federal officials wanted to hurt his boss, Island Adventures owner Jaret Owens.

Park Service spokeswoman Carol J. Spears said charges are being considered against Owens, 47, whose Ojai house was searched Wednesday. The Santa Barbara County district attorney’s office is reviewing whether he violated state business laws designed to protect natural resources, she said.

There is evidence of destruction and theft of Santa Cruz Island artifacts since the 1980s, she added.

“This is a prosecution for crimes that have been going on almost unchecked on Santa Cruz Island,” Perlin said.

But Owens, the island’s hunting concessionaire for 12 years, derided the raid as government overkill, a waste of taxpayers’ money and part of a Park Service effort to seize the Gherini ranch and close down the hunting operation.

“They’re still in my house right now, raising hell,” Owens said Wednesday night. “The bottom line is that this isn’t America any more. These people are totally out of control. They spent probably $100,000 on this deal, trying to find dirt to get rid of us and get the island.”

The arrests occurred as the National Park Service is seizing the Gherini ranch by order of Congress.

The government is scheduled to close down Owens’ lucrative hunting and camping operation Feb. 10. And it will seize Oxnard attorney Francis Gherini’s ownership interest in the ranch, which comprises the eastern 10% of the 25-mile-long island off the Santa Barbara coast.

The federal government already owns 75% of the ranch, having purchased shares from other Gherini family members. After years of fruitless debate over the value of Francis Gherini’s interest, Congress decided to take the property.

Although Tuesday’s raid went off without injury, it was condemned by Marla Daily, president of the Santa Cruz Island Foundation.

“It saddens me that the Park Service has resorted to Ruby Ridge tactics . . . ,” said Daily, referring to a fatal FBI shooting during a 1992 standoff with militants in Idaho. “This incident clearly crosses the line.”

Several of those on the island during the raid also said the government’s use of force was unnecessary and could have resulted in a fatal shooting.

“I think this was all extremely overdone,” said Crystal’s father, Charlie Graybeel, a hunter and small business owner from Northern California. “The charges do not justify an attack by helicopter, snipers on the ridges and carrying machine guns. The park rangers knew these people. They saw them every day. One of the rangers was invited to the wedding of one of the people they arrested.”

Authorities denied charges by Krantz and Berg that they were forced face down in the mud to be handcuffed, then left in the rain for hours.

The Park Service’s Spears said no one was forced to lie in the mud, that Crystal Graybeel was released from custody after 15 minutes, not the two hours she maintains, and that no officers wore ski masks. She confirmed that the assault teams were armed with automatic pistols, rifles and body protection.

“The intelligence they had was to expect up to 53 hunters on the island at the same time this was happening, and they were armed with muzzle-loaders and bows and arrows,” Spears said. “We want to stress that this was the lowest level of law enforcement that was necessary. And it was effective.”

Times correspondent Nick Green contributed to this story.