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SALT LAKE CITY (AP) -- The government is pulling back on a fine against the college student accused of disrupting a federal lease auction for oil and gas drilling around Utah's redrock national parks.
A deputy solicitor for the U.S. Department of the Interior says the government is dropping an $81,000 administrative fine until criminal charges are resolved against Tim DeChristopher, an economics major at the University of Utah.
Lawrence J. Jensen says the Bureau of Land Management is just putting the civil case and demand for payment on hold, but lawyers for DeChristopher are asking the Interior Board of Land Appeals in Arlington, Va., to dismiss the case for good.
The BLM fined DeChristopher a day after his criminal indictment April 1 by a federal grand jury.
(Copyright 2009 by The Associated Press. All Rights Reserved.)
