Felon may face trial for drugs, weapons

A felon captured at Black Butte Ranch with weapons and drugs may face trial after all, following a ruling by the State Appeals Court of Oregon.

Rodney Earl Angerbauer was apprehended March 9, 1994 after a desk clerk at Black Butte Ranch recognized his companion, Nichole Maree Burton, as having walked out on a bill weeks before.

Burton was arrested on outstanding warrants. When police went to inform her companion that she was going to jail, they found he had disappeared from the motel room. Comments from Burton caused police to believe that he may have been armed, although they did not know at that point who he was.

They searched the trunk of the car and found a rifle, later determined to be a machine gun.

Angerbauer was apprehended later that morning at a home under construction at Black Butte Ranch. Police learned his identity and found there were outstanding warrants for his arrest.

Burton, who had escaped from the Black Butte police car, was apprehended the next morning in Camp Sherman after spending a night in the woods.

Deschutes County Assistant District Attorney Ken Brinich has said officers did not testify in court consistently as to the position of the 9mm. handgun found under the seat.

The defense argued that there was no probable cause to arrest Angerbauer before learning who he was, according to Brinich.

Judge Tiktin agreed and determined that it was an illegal arrest, that police did not have probable cause, and that all fruits of that illegal arrest, such as the search warrant attained later that afternoon, would not be admissible evidence.

In their rental car, police found methamphetamine, cocaine, LSD, marijuana and hash oil with an estimated street value of more than $20,000.

Also seized were $1,616 in cash, electronic scales, a fully automatic assault rifle, a 9mm semi-automatic handgun, a .45 caliber handgun and hundreds of rounds of ammunition.

A three-judge Oregon Court of Appeals reversed Judge Tiktin's decision. The appeals court said that once police determined that the man with Nicole Burton was Rodney Earl Angerbauer and that there was an outstanding warrant for arrest, the search warrant for the car was justified.

"...defendant's prior felony conviction and an outstanding warrant for defendant's arrest for delivery of a controlled substance with a firearm, along with Fegette's and Haynes' earlier observations of a weapon in the trunk of the car, provided probable cause to believe that evidence of the crime of felon in possession of a firearm would be found inside the car..."

On September 29, 1994, Angerbauer pled guilty to an October 1993 incident of delivery of methamphetamine, possession of the drug, failure to appear and probation violation.

According Ed Mierjeski, Angerbauer's attorney in Deschutes County, Angerbauer served time on those charges and is currently out of jail, "supervised and working."

When a date has been set for further hearings on the Deschutes County charges, "we will be in court and Rodney will be there," Mierjeski said.