A federal grand jury indicted a father and son in the kidnapping of two U.S.Forest Service employees who were held hostage in Northern California, and the father faces new charges related to the 15-hour standoff, officials said Thursday.Joseph Charles Henrichsen, 49, and his son, Phoenix Henrichsen, 23, had already been charged with two counts each of kidnapping a federal employee, the U.S.
Attorney’s Office, Eastern District of California, announced in a news release.Joseph Henrichsen now faces additional charges of assaulting a federal employee with a deadly weapon, brandishing a firearm during a crime of violence and assault on a federal officer, the release said.The alleged kidnapping took place on July 16 in Shasta-Trinity National Forest, which is roughly roughly 115 miles south of the Oregon border and 150 miles north of Sacramento, according to officials.Officials have not named the two U.S.
Forest Service employees, who were biologists, and have not said if they’ve identified a motive for the kidnapping.The two U.S.
Forest Service employees were conducting routine environmental work near the forest’s Gumboot Lake Campground when Joseph Henrichsen approached them with an AR-10 semiautomatic rifle, officials said.The elder Henrichsen bound their hands, and with his son’s help, forced them into a remote trailer where they were held for the next 15 hours, the release states.The younger Henrichsen called multiple individuals stating that he had taken two federal employees hostage and was armed.
In one of the calls, he said he had “live rounds ready to [expletive] anyone who [expletives] with me,” officials said in earlier news release.Lawyers for the Henrichsens did not immediately return requests for comment.Speaking at a press conference in the days after the kidnapping, Siskiyou County Sheriff Jeremiah LaRue and other officials laid out a timeline of the kidnapping.Authorities received a 10:55 a.m.call from a U.S.
Forest Service law enforceme...