A man sporting a sidearm when he allegedly harassed a deputy and his wife at a Gardnerville grocery store, isn’t supposed to have firearms.
Justin Hall, 30, who refused to agree to a bail condition that he give up his guns on Monday, agreed to abide by a court condition on Wednesday.
He and Aaron Rasavage, 43, were taken back into custody for being prohibited persons in possession of a firearm on Monday.
Rasavage was allowed to post cash bail on Wednesday. Hall’s bail was increaased to $17,500.
Rasavage has a domestic battery conviction in 2011.
Hall was ordered by a court not to have firearms in Toulumne County seven months ago, prosecutor Erik Levin said on Wednesday.
On the way into the Sheriff’s Office on Monday, Hall allegedly told the deputy “you’re only making it harder for you guys.”
Calling the court a fiction on Monday, Hall said the entire proceeding was “a set-up to make us look bad, so you can walk us in here in irons.”
The two men are accused of prompting the cancellation of Tuesday’s Douglas County School Board meeting.
They’d posted bail on Friday morning after their May 13 arrest on charges of harassment and intimidation. They appeared in court on Wednesday.
While Rasavage agreed to conditions of bail that included staying 100 yards from schools, not to have a firearm and to wear a GPS monitor, Hall originally refused those last two conditions.
When Hall was called up, he started laughing at the proceedings, claiming the court had no jurisdiction over him as he’d “secured his civil liberties” and declared he was not subject to “admiralty maritime law” and was only subject to common law.
He said his arrest was a direct violation of his civil rights.
Rasavage claimed in court that attorney Joey Gilbert encouraged him to yell at school employees over a mask mandate that he opposed.
He said his child is having trouble at the school and that he didn’t know what to do.
“I don’t want to hurt anybody, but I’m very frustrated,” he said.
According to court documents, Rasavage allegedly threatened to bring “his militia” to the school board meeting to complain about the mask mandate, saying “he was willing to risk everything to be heard.”
He’d been calling the school his child attends and complaining about the masks to whomever picked up the phone. He was also yelling at the school children that they didn’t have to wear a mask.
According to documents filed with East Fork Justice Court, Rasavage and Hall contacted an off-duty deputy and his wife, calling them cowards because the woman worked at a Douglas school where masks were required. Deputies contacted the two men at a Gardnerville Ranchos address where they took them into custody on May 13.
In a letter from the woman read by Prosecutor Erik Levin, she said that she felt intimidated and threatened by the men.
She said she was glad her children weren’t with her when the incident happened and that she didn’t believe that would have deterred them.
“We have rights, as well,” she wrote. “We have the right not to feel intimidated or threatened.”
