The agent and three Oregon State Police bomb squad technicians had been acting on a tip and already had found and disarmed several booby traps during an investigation Sept. 7 at 1000 Dreamhill Drive, federal court documents say. After slipping by the hot tub, the bomb squad and FBI agent approached the property's manufactured home and blasted open its fortified front door, the complaint says. Somehow, the wheelchair got pushed and triggered the explosion that wounded the agent. “I’m hit,” the FBI agent told the others. The team retreated, rendered the agent first-aid and rushed him 15 miles to a hospital in Grants Pass. The trap was believed to have been made from a combination of household junk, monofilament line and shotgun ammunition, according to an FBI document filed in U.S. District Court in Medford. Authorities say the makeshift weapons were the handiwork of former owner Gregory Lee Rodvelt, 67, who was forced to forfeit his property as part of an elder abuse case brought against him. Joseph Charter, the estate's acting receiver, contacted authorities on Aug. 29 when he discovered a sign posted on Rodvelt's property that claimed it was now "protected with improvised devices," according to court records. Ten days later, the FBI agent and state bomb technicians set out to dismantle the property's assorted booby traps, including the hot tub that had been placed at the top of a hill near a gate by the entrance of the home. As the trap’s inspiration, court documents reference the opening scene in the 1981 movie “Indiana Jones — Raiders of the Lost Ark,” in which actor Harrison Ford outruns a giant boulder in an ancient tomb while on an exotic treasure hunt. The improvised device used a rat trap and a shotgun shell, which the FBI says was designed to be triggered by lifting the garage door. There, an X-ray showed that the explosion lodged a .410 gauge shotgun pellet into the agent’s left leg, just below the knee. For the past week, Rodvelt has been on trial in Maricopa County Superior Court on felony counts of aggravated assault with a deadly weapon and resisting arrest by creating a substantial risk of causing injury to an officer, and on misdemeanor charges that include three counts of failing to mark explosives. In 2016, Rodvelt's then 90-year-old mother and her guardian filed a civil lawsuit in Josephine County, which resulted in a $2.1 million judgment, against the son, court records show. Furthermore, a private investigator lost multiple tires to a hidden homemade spike strip on the remote property in August.
– An Oregon man resisting the sale of his home left booby traps on the property—including one apparently inspired by Raiders of the Lost Ark. Gregory Lee Rodvelt rigged up a hot tub to roll down a hill when a tripwire was triggered, much like the scene where Indiana Jones is "forced to outrun a giant stone boulder," according to court documents. At the property in Williams, southern Oregon, an FBI agent and three bomb squad technicians avoided the hot tub and other hazards, including a minivan booby-trapped with animal snares, but the agent was shot by an empty wheelchair inside the home; it had been rigged to fire shotgun ammunition when it was pushed, the Oregonian reports. The agent was hospitalized with a shotgun pellet lodged in his leg. Rodvelt, 66, faces a felony count of assault on a federal officer over the Sept. 7 incident, the Mail Tribune reports. He had been ordered to sell the home as part of a $2.1 million judgment against him in an elder abuse case involving his 90-year-old mother. He had been in jail in Oregon after an armed standoff with authorities in April last year but was released for two weeks in August to prepare the property to be turned over, according to court documents. Authorities were contacted when the estate's acting receiver saw a sign saying the property was "protected with improvised devices."