Third arsonist sentenced to 9 years

By Bill Bishop

The Register-Guard

Published: Saturday, May 26, 2007

After rendering a strong reproach to the parents of Chelsea Dawn Gerlach for failing to supervise her as a teenager, a federal judge on Friday sentenced Gerlach, 30, to nine years in prison for her role in a string of arsons by a secretive group of environmental radicals.

As a 16-year-old, Gerlach spent two months with environmental activists in Idaho, where she met a charismatic leader, William Rodgers, then 28. His influence marked her spiral from mainstream environmental activism into the underground cell that became the focus of the nation's largest-ever investigation of radical environmental saboteurs, according to court records.

Rodgers committed suicide in jail after his arrest in Operation Backfire, the name given the investigation. Details of his relationship with Gerlach are concealed in private court documents that U.S. District Judge Ann Aiken reviewed, but strong evidence surfaced in court that Rodgers was a pedophile and sexual predator who preyed on young activists.

Gerlach, according to prosecutors, "became immersed in Rodgers' writings" and adopted his radical, anarchist philosophies. Rodgers recruited Gerlach for her earliest acts of sabotage, including an attack at a Vail, Colo., ski resort in 1998 that did $24.5 million in damage and sparked nationwide publicity about the underground movement.

Before her arrest in December 2005, Gerlach had become "an active, committed, dedicated member of the (Earth Liberation Front) family," Assistant U.S. Attorney Stephen Peifer said in court. She was an instructor at all five of the group's training sessions and exercised "a degree of leadership," he said.

Gerlach pleaded guilty to conspiracy, 23 counts of arson in five incidents, damaging an electrical transmission line and other charges. In a plea deal, she agreed to cooperate with investigators in exchange for a 10-year prison term. Aiken ruled Friday that three of the incidents were acts of terrorism under federal law.

Gerlach was not charged for other incidents, including tree spiking and three attacks on research sites. After the group disbanded in 2001, in part due to Rodgers' sexual abuse of its members, Gerlach and co-conspirator Darren Thurston continued a criminal lifestyle of drug dealing, manufacturing false identification and illegally purchasing firearms, according to Peifer and court records.

She and Thurston learned to make the high explosive HMTD and traveled to California, where they instructed individuals who identified themselves as members of the Zapatista guerrillas of Mexico, Peifer said in court.

"She was a very accomplished criminal," Peifer told Aiken.

Defense lawyers told Aiken their presentation about Gerlach was not meant to shift blame, excuse or minimize responsibility for her crimes.

They focused on Rodgers' influence over Gerlach during her impressionable teenage years and on the extra measure of cooperation Gerlach offered to prosecutors.

After striking her plea deal, Gerlach offered on her own initiative to meet with four other co-defendants who were holding out for a trial, defense lawyer Craig Weinerman said. The four eventually struck their own deals, avoiding costly trials.

He said prosecutors came to know and trust Gerlach through 20 meetings with her to discuss the investigation. He said they treated Gerlach fairly.

Gerlach's cooperation was part of her transformation and redemption, Weinerman told Aiken. He and defense lawyer Patrick Ehlers told Aiken they had seen Gerlach change from being defiant to being kind, thoughtful and focused on paying her debt and helping others.

Mostly they discussed how Rodgers influenced an idealistic teenager who as a sophomore at South Eugene High School once wrote, "Our generation was born to save the Earth."

Under Rodgers' influence, Gerlach dropped out of college and left the mainstream environmental movement, they said.

"She was seduced by a very dangerous ideology. Her seducer was Bill Rodgers," Weinerman said.

In a 12-minute statement to the judge, Gerlach admitted that the saboteurs created great risks to people. She fought tears as she apologized to families of firefighters who were endangered.

"There is no excuse for being so cavalier in the risks we created," she said.

She thanked prosecutors for "being willing to see me for who I am and not just for what I've done."

"I have traveled a long road, but, thanks to all of you, I am back on the right path," she said. "I take full responsibility for my choices. I certainly don't blame my parents."

But Aiken focused on the start of Gerlach's spiral - her unsupervised two-month visit to Idaho as a 16-year-old, which allowed her to be exploited by Rodgers.

"Your parents let you down. That's not how you raise children," she told Gerlach. "That led you to where you are today. As a parent, I still can't get over that."

After Friday's hearing, Gerlach's family thanked Aiken for reducing the sentence, but said the crimes were not the result of parental neglect.

"The judge did not fully understand Chelsea's exceptional early maturity and accomplishments that earned our respect and trust. She never gave any indication of poor judgment or criminal intent and her parents trusted her," said her sister, Shasta Kearns Moore. "We share the grief of the tragedy of these crimes, but it wasn't caused by parental neglect."

In court, Aiken told Gerlach that her position demands that she administer the law and impose a sentence that punishes crime, deters others, reforms offenders and protects the community.

As she has with previous conspirators, Aiken recited her findings and the penalties set forth in the law. She increased Gerlach's sentence under the federal terrorism law for attacks on a Bonneville Power Administration power line near Bend in 1999, at a Eugene police substation in 2000 and at a tree farm in 2001.

Aiken then used her judicial discretion to lower the sentence. She also ordered Gerlach to pay more than $15 million in damages to victims.

Hearings on the remaining seven co-conspirators resume Tuesday in federal court in Eugene.