Gregory Lee Rodvelt: 'Indiana Jones' fan gets 12 years for rigging home with 'deadly booby traps'

OREGON, UNITED STATES: A 72-year-old Oregonian man was sentenced to over 12 years in prison for installing "intricate and deadly" booby traps throughout his house that were modeled after the 'Indiana Jones' movies.

In September 2018, Gregory Lee Rodvelt's booby traps in his home in the small town of Williams led to the hospitalization of an FBI bomb technician. This was after he lost his property in a lawsuit. A hot tub that was intended to roll down a hill like the famous boulder scene from the 1981 'Raiders of the Lost Ark' movie was one of the booby traps.

'These were no joke'

On June 2, 2023, Rodvelt was found guilty of assaulting a federal officer as well as using a firearm during a violent crime. Judge Michael J. McShane of the US District Court sentenced him to one-and-a-half years in a federal correctional facility on Wednesday, December 6.

FBI special agent Kieran L. Ramsey stated after the sentencing that "this individual went through great efforts to set intricate and deadly concealed traps to prevent FBI agents from doing their job."

"These were no joke. Mr Rodvelt knew he was breaking the law and his reprehensible actions are what landed him this sentence," he said.

To prevent the government from taking his house, Rodvelt set up the booby traps.

He set up traps such as a shotgun-disposing wheelchair and a rolling hot tub that would roll down a hill upon activation. After noticing a sign alerting people to the home's "improvised devices," the real estate attorney in charge of selling the property called the police.

Upon arrival at the scene, bomb technicians from the Oregon State Police and the FBI observed steel animal traps mounted on a gate post and beneath the hood of the minivan obstructing the gate, DailyMail reported.

Additionally, homemade spike strips that the lawyer had previously driven over were noticed. The FBI agents and bomb squad approached the house to clear the traps.

"They observed a hot tub that had been placed on its side and rigged in a manner that when a gate was opened it would activate a mechanical trigger causing the spa to roll toward the person who had opened the gate," according to the Oregon US attorney's office.

The scene was compared by police to an 'Indiana Jones' movie where Harrison Ford has to escape a huge stone boulder that he unintentionally set off by flipping a booby trap.

Gregory Lee Rodvelt accused of illegal explosive possession

A bomb squad and FBI agents made their way past the hot tub to the manufactured home on the property, where they blasted open the heavily guarded front door. Then they came upon a wheelchair Rodvelt that was rigged and positioned in the home's front entryway to activate a homemade shotgun gadget.

The wheelchair fired a.410 shotgun shell as the agents entered the house, striking the FBI bomb technician, who was not yet identified, below the knee. The agent began to gush blood from his leg and cried out, "I'm hit!"

His leg injury was treated at the hospital after he was admitted. However, Rodvelt had placed additional mines. Agents discovered a rat trap in the garage that had been altered to take a shotgun shell.

The trap was empty, but it was wired to the main garage door so that when the door was opened, it would trip. The technicians also discovered that there were security doors at the front and rear of the property, and that the windows had been locked from the inside.

The front door looked to have bullet holes from shots fired inside. In an interview, Rodvelt allegedly acknowledged putting up the booby traps, according to the investigators.

Agents wrote in the criminal complaint, "Rodvelt stated during the interview that he set up fishing line and a tripwire across the property gate that went to a round hot tub that was on its side set to roll down the hill and hit whoever comes through the gate."

"The stone rolling down in the Indiana Jones movie" was how Rodvelt put it.

In a case involving his mother and elder abuse, Rodvelt had lost the house.

Rodvelt had been detained in Arizona since April 2017 on suspicion of illegally possessing explosives. However, he had been granted a two-week release by the courts to enable him to get ready to give up the property.