Everglades Earth First Needs Help!! Donate for Stevie!

Dear friends,

As some of you may know our friend and fellow activist Stevie Lynn Lowe

needs our help to get out of an excessively harsh jail sentence in Martin

County,FL...

Stevie, along with several other environmental activists, was arrested in

January of this year for locking herself to a tree within one of Florida's

last remaining old-growth swamps, the Barley Barber... The story, in

short, was that our group tried for about a year to get Florida Power and

Light (FPL) to give us a guided tour of the swamp and/or to allow us to

bring a non-corporate, non-biased biologist to allow for public scrutiny

and to allow transparency in terms of what their power plant is doing to

the swamp and to the drinking water sources of the adjacent community of

Martin County, FL. The energy corporation (FPL) has had rights to the

swamp since the 70's and the underlying threat is that they are using the

swamp and the community's drinking water sources to cool their power plant

equipment. Stevie and our friends were trying to bring attention to these

issues and our urgency was based on the fact that FPL is killing this

swamp and polluting this community. Stevie is a hero and a role-model to

us all and she was there doing something good for the planet and it's

inhabitants. Now she is getting punished much more harshly than anyone

else arrested for this environmental action and much more harshly than

anyone should ever get for the charge she is facing.

On Thursday of last week (July 23rd) Stevie took this case to trial. Her

fellow arrestees did not have the time and energy to take their cases to

trial and most pled out getting about 20 days in jail with the assumption

of guilt for both charges: trespassing and resisting arrest without

violence. On Thursday July 23rd Stevie was found innocent for trespassing

(the state prosecution failed to prove that this swamp even belongs to

FPL) but was found guilty of resisting arrest without violence. Even

though she was found innocent of the charge for which she was originally

arrested and even though "resisting arrest without violence" is a petty

misdemeanor, the judge made an example of Stevie and sentences her with 90

DAYS IN JAIL. Considering that some folks got as low as 2 days in jail for

pleading out we consider this also to be a punishment for her having used

her constitutional right to a fair trial.

Friends, whether you agree with civil disobedience and this sort of direct

action work or not the fact is that 90 days in jail is much too harsh for

a small misdemeanor like resisting arrest without violence... and the fact

is that she is getting punished for trying to make a corporation disclose

whether it is killing a swamp and poisoning a community. She is getting

punished for using her right to a fair trial and for being a concerned

citizen.

PLEASE HELP US GET STEVIE OUT! We are helping Stevie appeal this decision

and get justice. We're fundraising $10,000$ which was also harshly decided

by this same judge to be her appellate bond. But the most important thing

is to get her out of jail as soon as possible.

PLEASE HELP US WITH LEGAL FEES! We can also work with loans if you are

comfortable donating financially we can pay you back as soon as we work

out all the legal issues and lengthy paperwork. Anything helps. Or if

you'd be interested in helping us put together a fundraiser we could use

that sort of help too.

If you can donate to our legal support fund please go to our website and

donate using our Paypal service at

www.evergladesearthfirst.org

or call us at

561 588 9666

or call me in the evenings at 561 588 0287

If you would like to write to Stevie in jail (she would really love that)

her address is the following:

Stevie Lowe

Martin County Jail

800 S.E. Monterey Rd.

Stuart, FL 34994

Thank you so much for any help which you might be willing to offer!

Love,

Ana.