the benefit

"These people need your help. You might not know them. They might not be part of any activist community. But they represent the heart of this movement and this struggle. Because they are the ones accused of actions that have become legendary and made into songs. They are the ones bearing the brunt of this struggle's resistance. They are the scapegoats for the Department of Justice. They are suffering for every act of defiance this movement has carried out under whatever banner. We owe it to these people to support them. We owe it to them to not be controlled by fear."
-Oregon political prisoner Jeffrey Luers, writing on the Backfire arrests, December 22, 2005.

Operation Backfire

On December 7, 2005, the FBI's "Operation Backfire" against environmental and animal liberation movements revealed its public face. That day, seven people living in four different states (Chelsea Gerlach, Darren Thurston, William Rodgers, Kendall Tankersley, Sarah Kendall Harvey, Kevin Tubbs, Daniel McGowan, and Stanislas Meyerhoff) were arrested in connection with a variety of sabotage actions. Many of these actions were claimed by the Earth Liberation Front (ELF) or the Animal Liberation Front (ALF). The targeted acts of sabotage included attacks against wilderness "management" programs, meat and lumber companies, and sites allegedly linked to genetic engineering and ecocidal development in general. None of this sabotage caused physical injury to any human being or other animal, although several of the actions caused significant economic damage to industry. Honoring its commitment to defending the property of a select few above any concern for the welfare of living things, the US government has labeled affinity groups operating under the banners of the ALF or ELF as America's number one domestic "terror" threat.

On the same day as the initial arrests took place, several people across the Pacific Northwest were subpoenaed to testify before a grand jury to be held in Eugene, Oregon. Canadian citizen Darren Thurston was taken into custody and served with a grand jury subpoena. He was subsequently indicted for federal conspiracy charges and charges from the arson of a horse corral near Susanville, California. Within days of the first arrests, it was revealed that a paid informant, Jacob Ferguson, had provided federal investigators and prosecutors with information to support the government indictments. Ferguson is a notorious "has-been" in the community of Eugene, Oregon, and suffers from a long history of heroin abuse. Almost immediately following his arrest and interrogation, Stanislas Meyerhoff agreed to be a federal cooperating witness. He stated to the press soon afterwards: "I hope, I pray the courts will be merciful with those who renounced these crimes and moved on to be students and professionals." Meyerhoff's decision to turn informant was unfortunately not the last of these cases. Information offered to the authorities led not only to the caging of several others, but may have contributed to further tragedy.

Early the morning of December 22, William Rodgers was found dead in his Flagstaff, Arizona cell, an apparent suicide. Prior to his arrest, Rodgers worked at the Catalyst Bookstore and Infoshop in Prescott, Arizona. He was known for his longtime participation in grassroots ecological struggles throughout the United States. A note attributed to Rogers from the night of his death reads:

"To my friends and supporters to help them make sense of all these events that have happened so quickly:
Certain human cultures have been waging war against the Earth for millennia. I chose to fight on the side of bears, mountain lions, skunks, bats, saguaros, cliff rose and all things wild. I am just the most recent casualty in that war. But tonight I have made a jail break; I am returning home, to the Earth, to the place of my origins.
--Bill, 12/21/05 (the winter solstice)"

On January 20, 2006, federal prosecutors and US Attorney General Alberto Gonzales announced a 65-count indictment against 11 individuals. The indictment's charges related to 17 different incidents of sabotage in Oregon, Washington and California. The indictment alleged that those accused were members of a fictional network, referred to in the indictments as "The Family," and that they had conspired to commit several acts of arson. The government has consistently tried to portray the defendants as a militaristic or cultish grouping, yet all available documentation instead points to informal and horizontal organization, in the situations where coordination existed at all.

The new indictment charged various defendants with arson, attempted arson, and using and carrying a destructive device. The destructive device charge carries a 30-year mandatory sentence, with a mandatory life sentence for a second conviction of this charge. In addition to using informants, the federal government has threatened life sentences for property crimes in order to secure plea deals in all of these cases. In this way, significant pressure has been applied to defendants. In addition to the seven people arrested on December 7, the Oregon indictment also named Jonathan Paul, Suzanne Savoie, Joseph Dibee, Rebecca Rubin (a Canadian citizen), and Josephine Overaker. Paul was arrested in Oregon a few days before the indictment was announced, and Savoie turned herself in soon after Paul's arrest. Dibee, Rubin and Overaker are believed to be out of the country.

In the weeks that followed, the government coerced and intimidated the defendants with various threats; especially life in prison. Five individuals were then revealed as "confidential sources" for the government's case. Subsequently, on February 23, Nathan Fraser Block and Joyanna L. Zacher were arrested in Olympia, Washington. The government issued a new indictment on March 15 which included Block and Zacher, who were held in custody and facing life plus 1,115 years in prison for their roles in two separate arsons. The government arraigned Block, Zacher, McGowan and Paul on yet another 65-count superseding indictment on June 28.

On April 6, before the District of Oregon superceding indictment, California issued indictments in connection with the 2001 horse corral fire near Susanville. Justin Solondz was indicted by the federal court in Sacramento, but he currently has not been located and is not in custody. Also indicted for the corral fire were Darren Thurston (whose plea on this charge was integrated into his general District of Oregon deal as a result of cooperation), Joseph Dibee, and Rebecca Rubin.

On July 20 and 21, Thurston, Tubbs, Tankersley, Meyerhoff, Gerlach, and Savoie pled guilty to a variety of conspiracy, arson, and attempted arson charges in U.S. District Court in Eugene. Federal prosecutors recommended that Thurston be sentenced to 37 months imprisonment; Tubbs, 168 months; Tankersley, 51 months; Meyerhoff, 188 months; Gerlach, 120 months; and Savoie, 63 months. All remaining charges against these defendants will be waived, and no additional charges will be brought against them in other districts, if they fully and completely cooperate with the government. The presiding judge granted motions by the cooperating defendants' attorneys to seal all plea petitions, cooperation agreements, and the transcripts of the public court hearings, thus making them unavailable for public scrutiny. On August 22, upon the motion of the non-cooperating defendants, this judge granted a motion to unseal these documents but for the paragraphs regarding cooperation.

During the two days of plea deal hearings, the government announced that it would pursue upward enhancement of sentences for the six taking pleas, arguing that the federal anti-terrorism enhancement guidelines apply to their sentences as well. At the request of the federal government, Gerlach made a statement denouncing her actions at the conclusion of her plea proceeding. For the first time, the government disclosed new allegations at the hearings of Gerlach and Meyerhoff, indicating additional arson incidents occurred in Phoenix, Arizona, and the eastern district of Michigan, though neither was charged with these incidents.

On May 18, a federal grand jury indicted Chelsea Gerlach, Stanislas Meyerhoff, Josephine Overaker and Rebecca Rubin for alleged involvement in the 1998 arson of the Vail ski resort. The Colorado federal court agreed to transfer these charges to Oregon where Gerlach and Meyerhoff have District of Oregon plea deals that incorporate their Colorado charges. On September 29, Gerlach and Meyerhoff entered "guilty" pleas during their District of Oregon arraignment for Vail-related charges; neither Meyerhoff nor Gerlach are expected to serve additional time in prison as a consequence of these pleas.

On November 9, the remaining District of Oregon defendants Joyanna Zacher, Nathan Block, Daniel McGowan and Jonathan Paul entered a global resolution plea deal. (Note: Briana Waters is not indicted in Oregon. She is the only non-cooperating defendant in the Washington indictment and vigorously asserts her innocence.) Prior to their deals being entered, these four defendants dropped a request for production of possible National Security Agency wiretap discovery material in their cases. In these pleas, the four defendants agreed to accept responsibility for their own roles in environmentally motivated crimes but explicitly refused to identify, provide information on, or testify against others. Complete, non-redacted plea agreements for these four defendants are publicly available. Similarly to the others who have taken plea deals, a "terrorism" enhancement of up to 20 years would be argued during sentencing.

During the November 9 plea hearing, Joyanna Zacher and Nathan Block each pled to one count of conspiracy, attempted arson, plus multiple arson charges from actions at the Joe Romania Chevrolet car dealership in Eugene and the Jefferson Poplar tree farm. Daniel McGowan entered a plea for one conspiracy charge plus multiple charges of arson relating to sabotage at Superior Lumber and Jefferson Poplar. The government recommended that these three be sentenced to 96 months in federal prison. Jonathan Paul pled to one count of conspiracy and one count of arson from property destruction at the Cavel West horsemeat slaughterhouse. He received a suggested sentence of 60 months in prison. During the hearing, McGowan made a statement to the court that "this plea agreement is very important to me because it allows me to accept full responsibility for my actions and at the same time remain true to my strongly held beliefs." Outside the courthouse, Jonathan Paul's sister Alexandra read a statement that Paul "will continue to be a person deeply committed to the betterment of our society and the elimination of animal and human suffering."

Jeff Hogg and the Misuse of Grand Juries

The "Operation Backfire" prosecutions have made extensive use of grand juries as a repressive tool. Grand juries by law are authorized only to decide whether or not to bring new indictments, yet in many political contexts they are used either to intimidate whole communities, or for the expressly illegal purpose of gathering evidence while proceeding towards trial. Furthermore, grand juries are secret government investigative bodies that strip witnesses of their basic constitutional rights.

Those subpoenaed to grand juries lose the right to remain silent, to hear any evidence presented against them, and even the right to an attorney in the grand jury room. A grand jury can jail people without convicting them of any crime or giving them a trial.

A significant number of people in several states have received grand jury subpoenas relating to Operation Backfire. Some have had their appearances cancelled, some have been intimidated into cooperation with the government, and some have flatly denied any knowledge of the incidents in question or refuted government assertions. Jeff Hogg, a nursing student and caregiver for disabled adults in Eugene, Oregon, spent almost half a year incarcerated for his principled stance against grand jury abuse, a stance which many locals consider heroic.

Jeff Hogg was subpoenaed to testify in front of a federal grand jury on May 18 in Eugene. Having refused to testify before this grand jury, Hogg was held in contempt by Judge Michael Hogan and sent to jail without having being charged with any crime. The unlawful grand jury was scheduled to expire on September 29, 2006, but days before Hogg was to regain his freedom, the federal government unbelievably extended the grand jury for six more months. Following the global resolution of the remaining District of Oregon cases, Hogg's lawyer filed for the release of his client (a previous appeal, to the 9th Circuit Court of Appeals in San Francisco, had been unsuccessful.) On November 15, Hogg was released from the Josephine County jail in Grant's Pass, Oregon, rejoining his partner and community.

Hogg commented shortly after release: "I'm happy to be free and not to have compromised my principles in the face of the abusive grand jury system." The government continues to threaten Hogg with another subpoena and more jail time.

Sentencing

Sentencing was passed down in June of 2007. Many of the defendants received Terrorism Enhancements (TE) when Judge Aiken decided that certain actions were intended to coerce the federal government. These Enhancements raise the base criminal level of the defendant and will be taken into consideration by the Bureau of Prisons when assigning the inmates security levels in federal correctional facilities. In short, although none of the arsons of Operation Backfire resulted in injury or death, the defendants could be assigned to maximum or "supermax" facilities with violent offenders. For more information on Terrorism Enhancements, see GreenIsTheNewRed.com.

The sentences the defendants received were:

• Cooperating Defendant Stanislas Meyerhoff - 13 years (+TE)
  
• Cooperating Defendant Kevin Tubbs - 12 years 7 months (+TE)
  
• Cooperating Defendant Chelsea Gerlach - 9 years (+TE)
  
• Cooperating Defendant Kendall Tankersley - 3 years 10 months
  
• Cooperating Defendant Suzanne Savoie - 4 years 3 months (+TE)
  
• Cooperating Defendant Darren Thurston - 3 years 1 month
  
• Non-Cooperating Defendant Daniel McGowan - 7 years (+TE)
  
• Non-Cooperating Defendant Jonathan Paul - Sentencing in abeyance
  
• Non-Cooperating Defendant Joyanna Zacher - 7 years 8 months (+TE)
  
• Non-Cooperating Defendant Nathan Block - 7 years 8 months (+TE)