The former owner of a home in Williams, Oregon, is facing assault charges against a federal officer after an FBI agent was shot by a booby-trapped wheelchair on that property. According to authorities, this happened on 7 September this year when officers and an FBI agent visited the home at the request of a real estate lawyer who is trying to sell the property.

On arrival at the home, they found it to be surrounded by a series of intricate booby-traps, one of which was the wheelchair in question.

Like a scene from an ‘Indiana Jones’ movie

Justice of the Peace Joe Charter said the real estate agent had warned authorities after he found a warning sign on the property saying it was protected by “improvised devices.”

Apparently, the officers and the FBI agent soon found out why the real estate agent needed their help.

According to the criminal complaint, on arrival at the property, a bomb squad was required to navigate through a series of booby traps. Among these was a hot tub (pictured below) which had been turned onto its side and set up to roll onto anyone unlucky enough to trigger the tripwire. There were also spike strips throughout the grounds.

According to a report by the Oregonian/OregonLive, the criminal complaint read that the home was pretty much like the scene in the film “Indiana Jones: Raiders of the Lost Ark,” where Harrison Ford inadvertently triggered a booby trap and had to outrun a huge stone boulder released by the switch.

Reportedly the bomb squad and the FBI agent did manage to get past the booby-trapped hot tub and then approached the house, blasting open a fortified front door. However, they didn’t get past a wheelchair, which had been set up with fishing line and other items, including shotgun ammunition. As they accidentally pushed the wheelchair, there was an explosion, wounding the FBI agent.

According to court documents, when his leg was X-rayed, it was revealed that the agent had a .410-gauge shotgun pellet embedded in it.

Former property owner facing charges

The booby-trapped property used to belong to Gregory Lee Rodvelt, 66, who had to forfeit his home as the result of an elder abuse case which involved his mother.

Authorities say Rodvelt had created all the booby-trapped devices surrounding the home.

The Mail Tribune reports that Rodvelt is already behind bars in the Maricopa County Jail in Arizona, where he is still being tried for an alleged armed standoff. He has been in the jail since April 2017 but was released for two weeks in mid-August to allow him to get ready to turn over his property. While not reported, it is to be assumed that Rodvelt used this time to thoroughly booby-trap the home.

According to the real estate agent, since the FBI agent was injured in early September, there has been a team of former military experts, working as private contractors, carefully inspecting the property.
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