Six arrested for ELF/ALF actions

Last week, after years of investigation, federal officials announced one of the biggest roundups yet of people allegedly involved in a string of acts of sabotage in the Pacific Northwest dating back to 1998. Six people from five states, from New York to Washington, were arrested in a series of coordinated raids around the nation on Dec. 7 and indicted on charges related to arson and sabotage in Washington and Oregon. The indictments and arrests were the results of a nine-year-long investigation of numerous arsons. Many of the actions were claimed by the Animal Liberation Front (ALF) and Earth Liberation Front (ELF) movements. Over the years, the ELF and ALF have claimed responsibility for burning and bombing research facilities, timber operations and sport-utility vehicle dealers, among other targets. "The Animal Liberation Front carries out direct action against animal abuse in the form of releasing animals and causing financial loss to animal exploiters, usually through the damage and destruction of property," the association says on its website. No one was injured in any of the attacks, but they used sophisticated fire-bombing techniques, officials said. The fires happened from 1998 to 2001. Federal officials offered little information on the arrests or indictments, beyond identifying those who were charged, their ages (most of them are in their late 20's or 30's) and saying what the crimes were. But they touted the coordinated roundup as one of the biggest in what they are calling "the fight against ecoterrorism." John Lewis, FBI deputy assistant director for counterterrorism, told a Senate committee earlier this year that environmental and animal-rights activists who have turned to arson and explosives are the nation's "top domestic-terrorism threat." Federal officials said they had 150 open investigations of 1,200 crimes from 1990 to 2004 in which people they refer to as "ecosaboteurs" had taken responsibility. The FBI identified both the ALF and the ELF as two groups that were "way out front" in association with these crimes. The arrests were made in Charlottesville, VA, where Piedmont Community College student Stanislas G. Meyerhoff, 28, was picked up, and in New York, where Daniel G. McGowan, 31, was arrested. They were indicted by a grand jury in Oregon for arson at Superior Lumber in Glendale and a May 21, 2001, fire at the Jefferson Poplar Farm in Oregon. The damages in each of those fires exceeded $1 million. Meyerhoff and McGowan face maximum penalties of life imprisonment if convicted. A 1998 fire at a government animal and plant health inspection site in Olympia, WA, was the basis of indictments against Kevin M. Tubbs, 36, who was arrested in Oregon, and William C. Rodgers, 40, who was arrested in Arizona. Damage from this arson was estimated at $1.2 million. Both men were indicted in Seattle and face a maximum penalty of 20 years in prison if convicted. As part of the sting operation, more than a dozen FBI agents, along with Joint Terrorism Task Force and local police officers raided The Catalyst Infoshop in Prescott, AZ. Environmental publications were seized along with Rodgers, one of the Infoshop's founding members. The center carries and sells social awareness literature and provides community meeting space. Also in Arizona, Sarah K. Harvey, 28, a student at Northern Arizona University, was arrested and charged in connection with a 1998 arson at US Forest Industries in Medford, OR. That fire caused an estimated $500,000 in damage. Harvey faces a maximum penalty of 20 years in prison. Chelsea D. Gerlach, 28, of Portland, OR, was charged with two counts related to the December 1999 destruction of a transmission tower near Bend, OR. Gerlach faces up to 25 years in prison if convicted. Portland activists Frank Winbigler and Shannon (Nonny) Urick were also served with papers ordering them to be witnesses in a federal grand jury investigation, and were advised that they are both targets of the same investigation. The large-scale investigation is ongoing and additional arrests are possible, said Emily Langlie, a spokeswoman for the US Attorney's Office in Seattle. Undercover informants An undercover informant helped investigators tape a conversation with one of the seven alleged radical environmentalists accused. Existence of the informant was disclosed by an investigator in US District Court in Brooklyn, NY, during a bail hearing for McGowan. Assistant US Attorney Stephen Peifer, who attended the hearing, said Eugene police Detective Greg Harvey testified he made the tape from a body wire worn by an informant who talked to McGowan at a convention in New York in April 2005. On the tape, McGowan talks about going to British Columbia in 2001. The tape was not played in court, but the judge listened to excerpts before deciding against granting McGowan bail. Lisa McGowan said her brother knew the person wearing the hidden microphone from his days as a political activist in Eugene, where he had lived for a few years before moving back to New York four years ago. In late 1999, a number of anarchists from Eugene had taken part in riots against the World Trade Organization meetings in Seattle, and authorities were clamping down. Anarchists also clashed with police in Eugene. "My brother does not state he was involved in any of these things. He did not state he was running from anybody. Just that he was laying low because the atmosphere was very tough in Eugene at that time," Lisa McGowan said. "They wanted Danny to say he was involved. Danny didn't say that." Lisa McGowan said her brother worked in a cafe frequented by political activists while living in Eugene, and was regularly confronted by police who knew him by name, often while he was riding his bicycle. "Being an activist doesn't mean you are a criminal," Lisa McGowan said. "My brother has his beliefs. We are proud of the things he fights for. "The weird thing was if Danny was asked to come in for questions he would have shown up and answered any questions," she said. "But he wasn't. They burst into his job. He works for a law firm–not for profit–that helps abused women. They kind of burst open the door, cuffed him and took him."