Eco-saboteur prison sentence upheld

by Ashbel S. Green, The Oregonian
Tuesday August 12, 2008, 11:09 AM

A federal appeals court on Tuesday upheld a more than three-year prison
sentence imposed on a woman who admitted being part of a five-year arson
spree directed U.S. Forest Service offices, lumber businesses, meat
processing plants and a car dealership.

The U.S. 9th Circuit Court of Appeals ruled that the Kendall
Tankersley's sentence was reasonable even though she was not found to
have engaged in domestic terrorism like some of her co-defendant's.

As many as 16 were involved in the conspiracy as members of the Earth
Liberation Front and Animal Liberation Front. The two groups were
implicated in more than $100 million of destruction and labeled by the
FBI as the country's leading domestic terrorist threat.

Tankersley pleaded guilty in 2006 to a conspiracy to commit a series of
arson fires from 1996 through 2001 in at least five Western states. She
also pleaded guilty to separate counts of attempted arson and arson for
a 1998 fire at the U.S. Forest Industries building in Medford.