Federal prosecutors expanded charges against some of the six suspects accused of ecoterrorist attacks in the Northwest, with new indictments handed up against two in Oregon and new allegations against two in Arizona, including that one of them helped firebomb a ski resort in Vail, Colo.
The Earth Liberation Front and Animal Liberation Front, shadowy underground radical groups described by the FBI as domestic terrorists, took responsibility for all but one of the six attacks in Washington and Oregon between 1998 and 2001 that are the subject of indictments so far.
Targets included the offices of lumber mills in Glendale and Medford, Ore.; a high-tension power line outside Bend, Ore.; a car dealership and meat processing plant in Eugene, Ore.; and a federal plant research facility in Olympia.
Though two people have now been named as suspects in the 1998 Vail, Colo., firebombing, which caused $12 million in damage, no indictments have been released.In Eugene, a federal grand jury handed up new indictments against Kevin M. Tubbs, 36, of Springfield, Ore., and Chelsea D. Gerlach, 28, of Portland, Ore.
Tubbs was indicted on arson charges alleging he helped firebomb Romania Truck Chevrolet in Eugene on March 30, 2001, destroying 35 vehicles and causing $1 million in damage. If convicted, he could face life in prison.
Authorities have not disclosed what evidence they collected to charge Tubbs with the dealership blaze. A few months after the fire, investigators told The Oregonian they had recovered a fingerprint.
Gerlach, named earlier this week as a suspect in the Vail ski resort arson, was indicted on charges alleging she served as a lookout in the firebombing of Childers Meat Co. in Eugene in 1999, and helped two other people set fires at Jefferson Poplar Farms in Clatskanie, Ore., in 2001.
In Flagstaff, Ariz., FBI Special Agent Doug Linter testified in U.S. District Court that investigators suspect Prescott, Ariz., bookstore owner William C. Rodgers in arson attacks against the Vail ski resort, as well as wild horse corrals in Burns, Ore., and Rock Springs, Wyo.; the University of Washington Urban Horticultural Center in Seattle; and the federal plant research lab in Olympia.
Rodgers was arrested last week on charges he was involved in the firebombing of a government wildlife laboratory near Olympia.
In the first physical evidence disclosed in the case, the inventory of search of Rodgers’ residence and bookstore listed boxes of suspected bomb-making materials including timers and re-lighting birthday candles, three guns and two digital photos of nude, prepubescent girls stored on a compact disc.
Linter also reported a recorded conversation where Rodgers told an unknown acquaintance that he was “planning something big” involving some kind of arson after the end of his relationship with his girlfriend, Katie Nelson.
Assistant U.S. Attorney Joseph Lodge said in court that Sarah Kendall Harvey, also known as Kendall Tankersley, 28, of Flagstaff, Ariz., acted as the lookout for a fire set in 1998 at the offices of a now-defunct U.S. Forest Industries mill in Medford, for which she has been indicted. A federal judge ordered Harvey held pending further proceedings in Oregon.
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