snitch Ian Wallace gets 3 years

NY student gets 3 years in prison for eco-crime

A New York man who said he’s been "consumed by shame" for his time as a radical activist was sentenced Monday to three years in prison for attempting to firebomb two buildings at a Michigan university.

"My greatest blessing is that no one got hurt," Ian Wallace said.

U.S. District Judge Robert Holmes Bell granted him a significant break. Wallace, 27, of East Setauket, N.Y., had faced a maximum penalty of 10 years in prison.

In October, he pleaded guilty to attempted destruction of government property at Michigan Technological University in Houghton in the Upper Peninsula. Wallace was a member of the Earth Liberation Front, known as ELF.

He placed homemade incendiary devices outside two buildings at Michigan Tech in November 2001. The goal was to destroy tree research and intimidate the public, but the devices failed.

The judge said Wallace "didn’t intend to hurt anybody, (but) this is a serious offense," The Mining Journal reported.

After a tip, the FBI approached him twice in 2007. Wallace admitted his crime and led agents to three people linked to the damage or destruction of 500 trees at a federal research site in Rhinelander, Wis.

"I’m taking three years out of your life," Bell said. "You’re going to emerge from this experience stronger than you’re now."

Wallace said he was mired in drugs, depression and alcohol in 2001 _ "I hated myself."

"I have been consumed by shame for what I have done," he said.

Wallace is a graduate student in anthropology at Stony Brook University in Stony Brook, N.Y. His sentence won’t start until June 1.

Besides the Michigan Tech incident, he has acknowledged vandalizing vehicles at a Forest Service research station at the University of Minnesota in April 2000. He also has taken responsibility for an arson at a construction site at the university in January 2002. The loss was $630,000.