Oregonian: 4 plead guilty in wave of eco-sabotage
4 plead guilty in wave of eco-sabotage
Federal court - An Ashland man admits to conspiracy and arson as part of a radical environmental movement
Friday, November 10, 2006
Bryan Denson
EUGENE -- For 20 years he denied involvement in eco-sabotage while supporting those who took part. He extolled the virtues of firebombs while serving as a volunteer firefighter. But on Thursday, Jonathan Paul stood before a federal judge and declared himself guilty of arson and conspiracy.
The Ashland resident, 40, a leading voice in the nation's radical movement to protect whales, wild horses and wilderness areas, was one of four people to plead guilty to conspiracy for their roles in a five-year campaign of sabotage in Oregon, Washington, California, Wyoming and Colorado.
The four were snagged by the largest investigation of eco-sabotage in U.S. history, an 18-crime inquiry into arsons and vandalism the government dubbed "Operation Backfire." Federal prosecutors have charged 13 men and women in Oregon with crimes, most committed on behalf of the Animal Liberation Front and Earth Liberation Front. The two organizations are characterized by the FBI as the nation's leading domestic terrorist threats.
Thursday's pleas by Paul, Daniel G. McGowan of New York and Nathan F. Block and Joyanna L. Zacher, both of Olympia, brought the number of convictions in Oregon to 10, with two others convicted outside Oregon for related crimes. Four others remain fugitives.
At a press conference in Portland, U.S. Attorney Karin Immergut and Robert Jordan, the FBI's special agent in charge for Oregon, declared victory.
"These people claimed they did what they did to protect the environment," Jordan said. "Along the way, they destroyed more than $30 million worth of resources. They spent year after year using violence to try to intimidate you and your government into their twisted way of thinking."
The four defendants in Thursday's hearing pleaded guilty in an agreement with prosecutors, who recommended shorter prison sentences than they were facing. McGowan, Block and Zacher faced 20 years to life and Paul faced as long as 30 years, said Assistant U.S. Attorney Stephen Peifer.
McGowan, 32, sobbing before U.S. District Judge Ann Aiken as he pleaded guilty to arson, said his actions were not the work of a terrorist, but an idealistic young man who cared deeply about saving forests. Block and Zacher pleaded guilty to multiple counts of arson.
The government recommended a sentence of eight years for McGowan, Block and Zacher, and five years for Paul. They are likely to be sentenced early next spring, said Assistant U.S. Attorney Kirk A. Engdall in Eugene.
Defense lawyers had filed court papers seeking to determine whether the government had used warrantless wiretaps to collect evidence against their clients. But they dropped their request and said that helped them strike their plea deals, a claim dismissed by the government.
"There's absolutely no basis for the claim that the NSA (National Security Agency) was involved in this case in any way," said Peifer.
The Jonathan Christopher Mark Paul who sat in court Thursday looked like a milder, middle-aged version of the brash young man who spoke up for the ALF and ELF in an interview with The Oregonian in late spring of 1999.
He was a seasoned activist then, comfortable answering questions on his lawn near Williams in Southern Oregon. Authorities had charged him with a 1986 Animal Liberation Front raid on a University of Oregon lab, a charge dismissed.
Paul lived in a redwood rental home in Northern California, where he broke bread with some of the stars of the radical environmental movement. He was an animal-rights activist who helped unify the so-called bunny huggers and tree huggers. They became fundamentalists in a belief that humans had no business plundering living things for profit.
Paul morphed into a public voice against logging and whaling, denying in his 1999 interviews with The Oregonian that he had taken part in underground eco-sabotage.
Six years passed before the feds closed in. They indicted Paul and a dozen others for their roles in the Operation Backfire crimes.
The indictment accused Paul and others of performing surveillance on Redmond's Cavel West slaughterhouse in 1997, preparing incendiaries, checking their two-way radios and then planting their firebombs for the conflagration that followed.
The Animal Liberation Front later claimed responsibility for burning down the "Cavel West Horse Murdering Plant," claiming success because the company did not reopen.
In his interview nearly two years later with The Oregonian, Paul mentioned the Cavel West arson as a good example of economic sabotage. "Complete success," he said.
On Thursday, after his court appearance, Paul stood atop the steps of Eugene's new federal courthouse with co-defendant McGowan and a gang of friends and supporters. The men let others speak for them.
One of those was Paul's actress sister, former "Baywatch" TV star Alexandra Paul. She described her brother as a man who infiltrated and exposed the mink industry, liberated suffering lab animals, and who got between whales and the men who hunted them.
Aimee Green of The Oregonian staff contributed to this report. Bryan Denson: 503-294-7614; bryandenson@news.oregonian.com.
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