Third defendant in Earth Liberation Front arsons faces sentencing

May 25, 2007

By JEFF BARNARD The Associated Press

EUGENE, Ore. (AP) — Chelsea Dawn Gerlach was 16 when she came under the "Svengali-like" influence of an instructor at an Earth First! encampment who became her mentor, persuading her to drop out of college to join his misguided arson campaign to save the Earth, defense attorneys said Friday.

If Gerlach had never met William "Avalon" Rodgers she would not be awaiting sentencing in U.S. District Court on charges of conspiracy and arson, including the 1998 destruction of $12 million worth of restaurants, ski lifts and other facilities at a Vail, Colo., ski resort in 1996, defense attorneys Craig Weinerman and Patrick Ehlers said.

Gerlach, 30, is the third of 10 members of The Family, a Eugene-based cell of the Earth Liberation Front and Animal Liberation Front led by Rodgers, to face sentencing after pleading guilty to conspiracy and arson charges connected to a string of 20 arsons in five states that did a total of $40 million in damage.

Rodgers committed suicide in an Arizona jail shortly after the arrest in 2005 of himself, of Gerlach and others.

Ehlers argued that Rodgers didn't kill himself because he was arrested, but because he was a pedophile and sexual predator who felt intense shame. Ehlers didn't elaborate.

Information detailing Rodgers' treatment of Gerlach was included in a DVD provided to the judge and to the prosecution by the defense, but which was not played in open court.

Gerlach is specifically charged with helping Rodgers burn the Vail ski resort, a meat company and a police substation in Eugene, a tree farm near Clatskanie, and a lumber company office in Monmouth.

The prosecution has recommended a sentence of 10 years in prison, arguing most of the fires were acts of terrorism intended as payback for police treatment of protesters during weeks of unrest in Eugene, expansion of the ski resort into endangered lynx habitat, genetic engineering and logging on national forests. The recommendation also gives credit for cooperation with investigators.

"She can't blame or use her parents, Rodgers, or (fellow defendant and former boyfriend Stanislas) Meyerhoff to blame or excuse her conduct," countered Assistant U.S. Attorney Stephen Peifer.

Recommending a term of six years in prison, defense lawyers argued that Gerlach went far beyond her obligations in cooperating with the prosecution after entering guilty pleas, and is far along the path toward redemption.

That included making an emotional plea to her boyfriend, fellow defendant Darren Thurston, to change his plea to guilty and cooperate with investigators; recalling from memory passwords that allowed investigators to gain access to encrypted information in seized computers, and leading authorities to buried caches of firearms on the Siuslaw National Forest. She also called on other defendants to plead guilty.

Thurston wiped away tears as Weinerman described an emotionally powerful meeting where Gerlach, surrounded by lawyers and FBI agents in a conference room, called on Thurston, whom she had not seen since their arrest, not be a martyr for their cause.

"My choice was to be a martyr or have a life," Weinerman read from a transcript of Gerlach's comments. "I want to live. I don't think martyrs are good for the environmental community.

"In 2001 those in our group brought nothing but pain and misery into our lives. It tore us apart. I've been living underground for 10 years. It feels like a huge weight is gone to be honest with people. You have to tell them everything. I told them everything."

Weinerman described Rodgers as a "Svengali-like guru," and mastermind of the Vail ski resort fire, who singlehandedly set fires at eight locations while Gerlach waited for him at the bottom of the mountain. She then wrote the communique warning the ski resort not to expand into endangered lynx habitat.

Court documents have described how a number of women in the cell complained about Rodgers sexually abusing others.

Rodgers first recruited Gerlach to try to shoot out the lens of a University of Arizona telescope built in a clearcut, but after that effort failed, recruited her for the Vail arson, lawyers for both sides said.

She was a student at Evergreen State College in Washington and becoming disillusioned with the ineffectiveness of civil disobedience when Rodgers contacted her, persuaded her to drop out, and brought her into his arson campaign, Weinerman said. Otherwise, she would never have become a radical using violence to achieve her goals, Weinerman argued.