Arizona border vigilante gets jail for drawing gun on deputy

A border vigilante arrested after he drew a gun on a Maricopa County Sheriff's deputy in the desert was sentenced Friday to six months in jail, but was granted the opportunity to leave for work six days out of the week.

The sentence for Richard Malley, 50, was about as generous as the judge could have ordered, with Maricopa County Superior Court Judge Bruce Cohen noting that Malley qualified for nearly every mitigating factor available.

But Malley couldn't escape a courtroom lecture from both Cohen and his own defense attorney, both the men chastising what they saw as Malley's half-baked attempt at vigilantism.

Malley was arrested in August 2013, when he and two other members of a "Minuteman militia group" were scouting for smugglers in the desert area near Gila Bend.

Malley mistook an undercover Sheriff's deputy for a drug smuggler, and soon the deputy found himself staring down the barrel of an AR-15 rifle.

The approach prompted a tense standoff between the two, with Malley only standing down once the deputy produced enough identification to satisfy the defendant.

"He thought he was one of the good guys," said defense attorney Jason Squires. But, he said, "There is no excuse for ever putting somebody whose job is to be law enforcement in danger. Even if they're wearing weird clothes, pretending to be a drug dealer, that's their job."

Squires said the membership of Malley's group had withered to about three men around the time of his arrest, and their patrolling efforts that night were an attempt to legitimize the group.

Malley had earlier pleaded guilty to disorderly conduct with a weapon, a low-level felony, and was additionally sentenced to 18 months of probation.

A contrite Malley addressed the court shortly before he was sentenced, apologizing to both the deputy involved and the judge for wasting his time.

"I've been torturing myself every day since this happened," he said. "I wish I could rewind the clock, but unfortunately [the events], they unfolded the way that they did."