Sentencing memo says arsons are terrorism
Published 9:00 pm Friday, May 4, 2007
EUGENE, Ore. – A sentencing memorandum filed Friday by federal prosecutors says that arson and sabotage by 10 radical environmentalists convicted of setting fires across five Western states amounted to terrorism.
Six men and four women are awaiting sentencing before U.S. District Judge Ann Aiken beginning May 22.
All were convicted for their roles in the five-state arson campaign that left timber company offices, dozens of SUVs, meat companies, federal installations and a ski resort in smoldering ruins. The government estimates damages at more than $40 million.
But Eugene attorney Kelly Beckley, who represents defendant Daniel McGowan, told The Oregonian newspaper in Portland that the defendants are neither “monster terrorists” nor “Osama bin Laden and friends.”
“The label isn’t the issue in this case,” Beckley said. “The issue is whether or not the terrorism enhancement is appropriate under the federal sentencing guidelines. It is the defendants’ position that it is not.”
The government’s 148-page sentencing memo argues that the crimes qualify for the so-called “terrorism enhancement” that allows additional – and potentially harsh – prison sentences.
The crimes attributed to the group commenced with the October 1996 arson at a U.S. Forest Service ranger station in Oakridge and concluded with the simultaneous firebombings of Jefferson Poplar Farm, near Clatskanie, and the University of Washington Horticulture Center in Seattle in May 2001.
Taking responsibility for much of the sabotage were the Animal Liberation Front and Earth Liberation Front, underground groups that the FBI classifies as the nation’s most destructive domestic terrorist organizations.
The motive of the saboteurs, who often channeled claims of responsibility to news media, was to punish corporations, the government and symbols of capitalism for harming the air, forests and animals for profit.
Supporters say the arson was intended only to cause economic harm and nobody has been injured.
But federal law and sentencing guidelines define terrorism as crimes intended to influence or affect government conduct by such measures as coercion or retaliation.
