WASHINGTON -- Last week, federal law enforcement officers stopped two cars carrying a handful of men and women who had occupied the Malheur Federal Wildlife Refuge near Burns, Oregon, for weeks. Law enforcement shot and killed one occupier, LaVoy Finicum, after he fled. The feds arrested eight people that day. But one of the people they arrested was different from the others: Pete Santilli, 50, an Ohio talk-radio host who was clearly sympathetic to the occupiers' cause, but has repeatedly said he was covering the standoff as a journalist.

During the first week of the occupation, Santilli was often seen at the wildlife refuge brandishing a camera on a pole, and wearing a bright vest that said press. When the occupiers held one of their morning press conferences, he wasn't behind the podium -- he was in the pool asking questions and heckling reporters. "I'm here acting as a reporter," Santilli told The Huffington Post in an interview in the refuge parking lot on Jan. 3, well before the confrontation that ended in his arrest. He said that he supported the occupiers, but was not involved in plans to seize the federal building. "I was opposed to coming over here," he said. "I didn't even know about it." But as of Wednesday, he was still in jail, facing federal charges of conspiracy to "impede U.S. officers from doing their duties by force, intimidation or threat that carry a maximum sentence of six years in prison.