On a late January day, near the end of the 41-day occupation of the Malheur National Wildlife Refuge, a man named John Killman joined Ammon and Ryan Bundy and other protesters.

He spoke with a French accent and provided occupiers with food and firearms training. He was friends with many of them on Facebook.

There was a catch, however: John Killman didn't exist.

The discovery that Killman was an FBI informant hit just before the surprising outcome of the trial of seven refuge occupiers. The revelation may have sounded the death knell for a struggling prosecution, now faced with more questions about how informants may have influenced the case.

Killman's secret role wouldn't have come to light except for a chance conversation and fast detective work by defense attorneys.

***

It was during a lunch break in the waning days of the federal conspiracy trial of the occupiers when defense lawyer Lisa Maxfield picked up an intriguing lead.

Maxfield was interviewing a potential witness, Matthew Deatherage, about his role manning the gate at the refuge during the takeover.

Suddenly, he leaned toward her.

In a hushed voice, he revealed that "this weird French guy" had shown up "out of nowhere" at the bird sanctuary just a few days before the FBI arrested Ammon Bundy and other occupation leaders.

"I thought he was an agent provocateur," Deatherage told the lawyer.

He showed Maxfield what he said was the man's Facebook page. The only pictures were of a military-style rifle in front of a scenic background of arches under the name "John Killman." Most of his Facebook friends were people involved in the armed seizure of the refuge to protest federal land management.

Deatherage described how Killman, speaking with a foreign accent, had provided training on guns and military tactics.

"Oh, that guy!" chimed in defendant Shawna Cox, who was nearby in the eighth-floor courthouse room set aside for the defense. "You need to unmask him."

Later that night over beers and mussels in a downtown bar, Maxfield and fellow defense attorney Tiffany Harris decided they needed to smoke out the mystery man.

"Let's go get what we can get," Maxfield said.

If they could show that an informant egged on the occupiers, particularly in encouraging them to use guns, that could taint the government's evidence. Even at the 11th hour, they believed the effort was worth a try.

Their deadline sleuthing would soon expose Killman as Confidential Human Source No. 2. Their find pressured prosecutors to acknowledge to the jury that the FBI had gathered intelligence from a total of 15 informants in the case, including nine sent into the refuge.

Their work led to one of the most jaw-dropping moments of testimony during the five-week trial, threw the government's most inflammatory piece of evidence into question and raised reasonable doubt in the jury room during deliberations.

U.S. District Judge Anna J. Brown's instructions to the jury noted that informants are legal and a common FBI tactic and that authorities can use them "to engage in stealth and deception" to assume the role of a member in an alleged conspiracy. Yet police and trial experts say their use can boomerang, raising concerns about entrapment or collusion.

"It's one of the most challenging things in law enforcement to successfully use an informant, protect their life and hopefully use them again in the future," said retired FBI agent Clint Van Zandt. "The good FBI agents cultivate informants, send them into situations where an undercover agent couldn't pass muster. But it can always backfire."

Ferreting out 'John Killman'

From the bar on the night of Oct. 7, Maxfield immediately called her investigator, Rachel Philips, with the tip. She suggested Philips reach out to other refuge occupiers who might have encountered Killman.

Philips spoke with one occupier who confirmed that Killman was involved in the firearms training at the refuge boat launch. The next day, she reached Karl Koenigs, a Wisconsin man known by the nickname "Capt. Karl," who hadn't been indicted in the case but had been attending parts of the trial. He had spent three weeks at the refuge near Burns and said he commanded a unit of occupiers dubbed the "Alpha Squad."

Koenigs remembered Killman telling him and others at a morning briefing that he had been part of the Swiss army and involved in special forces. Killman shared tales of where he'd been and what he'd done.

Koenigs had something even better than memories of Killman. "Well, I got his phone number," he told the investigator.

Philips immediately dropped the number into a reverse directory and up popped an unusual name: "Fabio Minoggio."

A Facebook photo of Minoggio showed him posing in front of what looked like the Swiss Alps.

Defense lawyers showed this Facebook photo to Oregon standoff trial defendants to track down Fabio Minoggio, aka John Killman.

The lawyers passed the picture around to the defendants on trial for conspiracy to prevent federal workers from doing their jobs at the refuge. They agreed it showed the man they knew as Killman, though he appeared younger in the photo.

Maxfield -- who represented Neil Wampler of Los Osos, California -- immediately had subpoenas served at every address they found for Minoggio, in Nevada, Arizona and Utah. The lawyers paid for private process servers to do the job because it would have taken the U.S. Marshals Service at least a week and the lawyers couldn't wait that long with testimony wrapping up.

On Friday, Oct. 14, Maxfield received a voice mail.

"I don't know who this Mr. Wampler is," the caller with the foreign accent told her, elongating the name so it sounded like "Woompler." He also mentioned getting a subpoena "about some kind of Burns thing.''

The caller identified himself as "Samuel" and said he was in Arizona. He couldn't just leave his life and drive to Portland, he said. "I don't even know what this is all about,'' he added.

But the trial defendants confirmed the voice on the message sounded like Killman. Maxfield had her investigator call him back. Philips reached him that day and he acknowledged receiving the subpoena.

"We labeled the subpoena Fabio Minoggio. What's your full name?" Philips asked.

"That's exactly the name," he said.

"We're subpoenaing you as a witness because of the Malheur refuge case. Have you heard of it it?" she asked.

After a slight pause, he replied, "Yeah but what did I witness? I didn't witness anything besides, I didn't know, I don't know the guy. I Googled him up, but..."

"But you were at the refuge for a bit, weren't you?" she continued.

"Well, I brought twice donuts, but that's about it," he said, later adding he spent three days there.

"Did you ever use a different name when you were there?'' she asked.

"Yeah, I usually go under John," he said.

"Did you go under John Killman?" she asked.

"Yes, ma'am," he said.

This still image taken from a video recording shows men firing rifles from the boat launch of the Malheur National Wildlife Refuge on Jan. 25.

"Did you ever talk to the guys about defensive driving tactics or shooting guns?'' she asked.

"Well, I went to the range. I'm all about, uh, safety and when I saw how they shot -- and how they manipulate the muzzles at each other, I nearly fainted," he said.

"So you gave them safety tips?"

"Yeah," he said.

"And were you ever paid for your time at the refuge?" she asked.

"What?! No," he responded.

"Could have been by anybody. There were people paid by the FBI just to go and hang out,'' she said.

"No," he told her again.

"I'm going to call you back in just a few minutes with our witness coordinator and set up how to get you here on a flight, OK?'' she said.

After another long pause, he told her, "Well ... you know you infringe in my life."

"It's a federal subpoena. Once you've been served, you have to honor the subpoena. It's a court order," Philips said.

She called him back quickly with more information on logistics. Minoggio said he was a single father with a young son.

"You're both coming," the investigator told him, saying the U.S. Marshals Service would get plane tickets for the two of them.

'The Mad Minute!'

Later that day, as the defense lawyers were back in court for the trial, Maxfield received a series of text messages. They were from her law partner, Kristen Winemiller.

A Facebook page put up under the alias 'John Killman.' Defense lawyers learned the Facebook page was created in January, after the occupation of the Malheur National Wildlife Refuge had started.

Winemiller had just taken a phone call from a detective with the Hualapai Tribal Police, saying he was reaching out on Minoggio's behalf and that Minoggio was in the middle of taking police academy courses to become an officer on the northwestern Arizona reservation.

The detective said Minoggio was claiming he had not been at the refuge or in Harney County, had nothing to do with the case and had no idea why he had been subpoenaed. The detective said Minoggio would lose his place in the police academy if he had to travel to Oregon to testify.

Winemiller told the detective that Minoggio already admitted to their investigator that he was in eastern Oregon during the occupation and knew exactly why he was subpoenaed.

The detective then offered to have Minoggio testify by phone so he wouldn't miss any classes, but Winemiller said neither the defense attorneys nor the judge would allow that. The detective responded that FBI agents had told him that Minoggio could indeed testify by phone if necessary.

Hearing that the FBI was involved bolstered their hunch about Minoggio. The lawyers figured he must be Confidential Human Source No. 2 - as described in one of the 15 heavily redacted FBI reports on the agency's informants in the case.

The report included information about how the informant brought food to the refuge to help ingratiate himself with the occupation's leaders, spent three days in late January at the refuge, reported back to the FBI about the presence of a shooting range there, estimated the number of rounds fired and described types of training offered.

That night, Minoggio and his son flew to Portland, and the defense investigator picked them up at the airport and dropped them off at the downtown Hotel Monaco. At noon Saturday, Minoggio met with defense lawyers Maxfield and Harris, standby counsel for Cox, in Harris' law office.

He showed up in a polo shirt, slacks and heavy gold jewelry around his neck. He divulged more of his background, saying he was born in Switzerland and served in the Swiss military for 20 years.

His son, about 4 or 5 years old, interrupted at one point when Minoggio tried to deflect a question about which military branch he had been in. "That's not true, Daddy. You were in the Army!" the boy said, according to the lawyers.

Minoggio told them he was trained in "psy-ops," weaponry and martial arts. Asked why he went to the refuge, he said, "I am in this because of my love of gun safety," according to the lawyers' notes. He also said he didn't want to miss a "moment in history."

"I have a keen sense of history," he told them. When the Berlin Wall fell in Germany, he was there, he said. He went to the refuge because he sensed the occupation, too, would become a milestone.

The road leading into the Malheur National Wildlife Refuge, January 2016.

"My heart is with Ammon but he is badly advised," Minoggio told the lawyers.

Maxfield and Harris showed him Government Exhibit No. 73 -- a video played for jurors at least four times. An occupier filmed it Jan. 25, capturing a group of men standing in a line at the refuge boat launch and firing off rifles in a barrage of bullets toward the water.

"That is the mad minute! All those shells were created in the mad minute!" Minoggio immediately exclaimed, the lawyers recounted.

Minoggio told the lawyers that he was there to assess their gun handling skills. The occupiers wanted to practice, worried that the FBI's Hostage Rescue Team would raid the refuge, he said. Up to 18 people, mostly men in their 20s and 30s, participated, he said.

How did he rate them? "Unworthy," he said, according to the lawyers' notes.

Minoggio, though, remained adamant that he wasn't working for the FBI or paid by the federal government.

Prosecutors refuse to confirm ID

That Saturday afternoon, the defense lawyers turned to the prosecution team for help confirming Minoggio's identity.

Maxfield sent an email at 2:30 p.m. to three assistant U.S. attorneys.

"Y'All, We just interviewed a man known to refuge protesters as 'John Killman.' We believe his true name is Fabio Minoggio,'' she wrote. "Would you please advise whether this individual was an agent, informant, contractor of the government while at the refuge, Bunkerville or otherwise. Did the government send Mr. Minoggio to the refuge? ... Finally, was he compensated by any federal agency? Were his services used by any federal agency?"

Seventeen minutes later, prosecutor Geoffrey Barrow responded: "Lisa, I'm not sure I understand your question."

He explained that prosecutors had given the defense their reports on confidential sources in July. He also noted that the judge had just ordered the government to give her all its folders and reports from confidential sources so she could rule on a defense motion to compel their identities.

"What more do you believe is required?'' Barrow asked.

FBI informant Fabio Minoggio, waiting in an eighth-floor room of the federal courthouse in Portland to be called as a witness for the defense in the Ammon Bundy trial.

Less than 10 minutes later, Maxfield made it clear: "The short version: is this dude an informant?"

Defense lawyers heard nothing more from prosecutors.

The following Monday, lawyers from both sides were back before the judge. That morning, Harris had filed a motion, urging the court to order the government to identify whether Killman was one of its confidential human sources.

Barrow, however, argued that prosecutors aren't obligated to disclose any information identifying informants. If a person takes the witness stand and lies about their role, then the government must come forward and correct any misinformation, he said.

The judge described the quandary as "a very unique scenario.'' She ruled that she wouldn't order the government to identify any of its 15 confidential sources, but if a witness testified in a way that the government knew was false, "then we have a different story.''

Judge Anna J. Brown inside the Mark O. Hatfield United States Courthouse during the trial for defendants of the Malheur National Wildlife Refuge occupation.

The judge asked Harris what "Mr. Killman" would say once he was called to the stand. Harris said she honestly didn't know. She would expect him to tell the truth once he was sworn in, but she told the court he had consistently denied that he was an FBI informant.

It's not uncommon for informants to hold back or lie outright to others while working for a law enforcement agency. The work of FBI informants is built around deception, experts say, but they're instructed to obey the law at all times. On the witness stand, they can't lie under penalty of fines or jail time like anyone else.

Meanwhile, as the legal arguments played out, Maxfield was one floor down in the courthouse with Minoggio. "I was hoping I could get him to come clean,'' she said.

"I said to him, 'Look we know you are CHS 02, an FBI informant. We're going to call you as a witness," Maxfield recalled. "I'm not waiting for you to tell me. I'm telling you I know you are this guy. What I'd like to know now is, after we met, did you talk to the FBI after you talked to us?"

After some hemming and hawing, she said, Minoggio admitted he did.

Throughout, Maxfield said, Minoggio was nervously sending text messages to someone and yelling at her and her investigator: "You've made me lose my job!''

Getting to the witness stand

Back in Courtroom 9A, the judge wouldn't let the defense call "Mr. Killman'' as a witness without first allowing him to consult with his own court-appointed attorney. Defense lawyer Norm Sepenuk arrived, met with Minoggio and asked to meet with the judge privately in her chambers.

When the judge emerged, she relayed that Sepenuk suggested the witness wouldn't be of much use to the defense.

Maxfield and Harris weren't about to dismiss him. Harris called him to the stand.

He raised his right hand, took an oath to tell the truth and publicly revealed his true name: Fabio Minoggio.

Observers in the public gallery traded quick glances and smiles. But the courtroom was silent in anticipation as Minoggio confirmed what others had suspected in a short but pointed back-and-forth with Harris:

Law enforcement personnel at the airport in Burns in January during the occupation of the Malheur National Wildlife Refuge.

He admitted he was an informant for the FBI, had infiltrated the refuge and had supervised the shooting range during his three-day visit, from Jan. 23 through Jan. 26. He said the FBI paid his expenses, including the cost of a bulletproof vest he bought on his drive to the refuge because he presumed he'd be in "harm's way."

He said he provided training on firearms safety and proficient use of firearms to the occupiers.

After Minoggio's testimony, the defense rested its case.

During their closing arguments, defense lawyers repeatedly hammered the government for not disclosing that a man who agents had sent into the refuge was supervising a shooting range for occupiers.

The inflammatory video of occupiers rapidly-firing rifles from the boat launch occurred a day or two after Minoggio arrived at the refuge, they pointed out.

It was also Minoggio who trained defendant Jeff Banta at the refuge on hand-to-hand combat and how to drag someone from a car, his lawyer Robert Salisbury reminded jurors. A prosecutor had asked Banta, on cross-examination, about whether he participated in tactical training at the refuge on how to remove someone from a car, but never mentioned it was an informant who had led that instruction.

"Why didn't the government just tell the truth about Fabulous Fabio?'' Salisbury asked.

Marcus Mumford, Ammon Bundy's attorney, chuckled about the "Killman" alias that he said he presumed the FBI gave Minoggio. "Of course, that's what the government thinks of the occupiers,'' he said.

Another defense attorney, Matt Schindler, called it a "catastrophic mistake'' for prosecutors not to identify the informants. He asked jurors: "How can you trust a federal government who placed a dozen informants into the conspiracy then doesn't'' tell you who or what they did?

Assistant U.S. Attorney Craig Gabriel tried to put the concerns to rest in his rebuttal. The government is allowed to use informants in investigating crimes, he said.

"We're not relying on the informants in this case to prove'' the conspiracy charge, Gabriel told jurors, but relying on the evidence presented at trial.

But the damage had been done.

'Remember Fabio'

Defense questions about the role informants played resonated with jurors, who returned across-the-board acquittals on the federal conspiracy charge against Ammon Bundy, older brother Ryan Bundy and five co-defendants.

Ammon Bundy

One juror did a "full 180-degree turn" after learning there were six informants on the refuge whose names never emerged during the trial, said Juror 4, the only one among the nine women and three men on the panel to speak publicly about deliberations.

The "choice of the prosecution to allow that much room for mysterious influence there (remember Fabio?) was decisive," Juror 4 said in an email to The Oregonian/OregonLive.

Minoggio is now listed as an officer with the Hualapai tribal police on the agency's website. Calls and messages to his cellphone went unreturned.

Hualapai Tribal Police Chief Francis Bradley said only, "This isn't our investigation. I'm not going to have any comment on this.''

Another officer with the tribal police department, speaking on the condition of anonymity because he wasn't authorized to speak publicly, said the agency would "certainly not penalize someone who was just doing lawful business for the FBI."

Ryan Bundy

Van Zandt, the retired FBI agent who now works as a security consultant, said the use of informants carries risks but also benefits. The FBI likely got help from Minoggio, who could report back about the firepower "they were up against'' at the refuge, he said.

"A good informant has to be able to ingratiate themselves into a group, and to gain credibility within a group, that informant has to have something to do, something to add," he said.

If the defense, though, raises claims of complicity, he said, "the government has to counter with evidence of a predisposition on the part of defendants to do this type of activity anyway."

In the Bundy case, the jurors were left with troubling, and apparently insurmountable, questions about Minoggio's role.

After the surprising verdicts were returned Oct. 28, the defense lawyers gathered for drinks at a downtown Portland bar.

Amid their celebration, they raised and clinked their glasses together in a toast.

To "Fabulous Fabio!"

-- Maxine Bernstein

mbernstein@oregonian.com

503-221-8212

@maxoregonian