[Ppnews] More indictments in WA

[Political Prisoner News]

More indictments in WA!!

Two articles. one from Seattle Times and one from Seattle PI.

They indicted another person on the UW arson, gave Briana Waters a
'use of a destructive device' charge [carrying a 30 year mandatory
minimum] and indicted one person and cooperating witness/informant
Kevin Tubbs for the Olympia APHIS/ADC arson.

It seems that the trend is for each individual state to indict people
for every incident that took place in their district. i.e. while
incidents outside of Oregon are named in the conspiracy part of the
Oregon case, only individual states can indict for the actual
incident. So, Oregon can name incidents like the UW arson or the Vail
arson in the Oregon conspiracy charges but only Washington State and
Colorado can actually charge the people. Thus far, we have seen the
indictment in Oregon, 4 people indicted for the Litchfield Horse
Corral incident in California, 2 people indicted for the UW incident
and 2 people indicted for the Olympia incident. Following this trend
and the use of grand juries in all of these states as well as Colorado
and Wyoming, you can assume there could be potentially more
indictments soon.

thanks for your support,
Family and Friends of Daniel McGowan
=======
Seattle PI article:
http://seattlepi.nwsource.com/local/269946_arson12.html

SEATTLE POST-INTELLIGENCER
http://seattlepi.nwsource.com/local/269946_arson12.html

3 accused in 2001 UW arson

Indictments come just before statute of limitations expires

Friday, May 12, 2006

By PAUL SHUKOVSKY
P-I REPORTER

FBI agents and federal prosecutors say they have 
solved the 2001 firebombing by suspected 
ecoterrorists of the Center for Urban 
Horticulture at the University of Washington.

With just 10 days to spare before the five-year 
statute of limitations ran out, authorities 
obtained a grand jury indictment in U.S. District 
Court in Seattle on Thursday that identifies 
three suspects by name and refers to two other unnamed conspirators.

Accused of torching the center in the May 21, 
2001, attack were Briana Waters, 30, of Berkeley, 
Calif., Justin Solondz, 26, of Jefferson County 
in Washington and William Rodgers, who killed 
himself in an Arizona jail after his arrest in December.

The indictment accuses the trio, along with two 
unnamed co-conspirators, with setting the 
facility ablaze under the belief that genetically 
engineered plants that they considered dangerous 
to the environment were being grown there. The 
fire destroyed years of botanical research. The 
UW spent $7 million to rebuild the facility.

One of the targeted scientists who worked at the 
center told the Seattle P-I that his research 
into poplar trees did not involve genetically 
altering them. Rather, Toby Bradshaw, whose lab 
was ground zero for the firebomb, was studying 
the genetics of hybrid trees that had been 
created through standard grafting techniques.

He said the most damning irony is that many 
endangered Northwest plants that a colleague had 
been growing at the center for reintroduction 
into the wild were destroyed by the fire.

Waters had previously been charged in the arson. 
Thursday's indictment brings a count of 
conspiracy to use firebombs to commit a series of 
arsons including the one at the UW center against 
Waters and adds Solondz, Josephine Overaker, 31, 
and Kevin Tubbs, 37, as co-conspirators.

Solondz, who is a fugitive and believed to be 
abroad, allegedly built a firebomb in Olympia the 
day before the UW blaze, according to a statement 
from the U.S. Attorney's Office in Seattle. 
Waters is accused of possessing a firebomb on the day before the UW arson.

Overaker also is a fugitive and thought to be out of the country.

The indictment alleges that Rogers and his 
co-conspirators decided in 2000 to recruit more 
members and held secret meetings in Washington, 
Oregon, California and Arizona, where they 
decided to focus on fighting genetic engineering.

After selecting targets and providing instruction 
on how to build firebombs, Solondz is alleged in 
July 31, 2000, to have destroyed 5 acres of 
canola being grown by the Monsanto Corp. in Dusty in Eastern Washington.

In the winter of 2001, they allegedly held a 
secret meeting in Olympia and shortly thereafter, 
Solondz is alleged to have girdled the bark on 
800 hybrid poplar trees at Oregon State University sites.

Tubbs and Overaker already have been charged in 
connection with an alleged eco-terrorist 
conspiracy in Oregon. Solondz already has been 
indicted in California in connection with the 
Oct. 22, 2001, arson of a federal wild horse and 
burro corral in Susanville, Calif.

If convicted, Waters and Solondz face a mandatory 
minimum term of 35 years behind bars.


P-I reporter Paul Shukovsky can be reached at 
206-448-8072 or paulshukovsky at seattlepi.com.



Seattle Times article:
http://seattletimes.nwsource.com/html/home/index.html
Friday, May 12, 2006

Indictment lists arson at UW, attacks on cropland

By Craig Welch
Seattle Times staff reporter

Before environmental saboteurs set fire to the University of
Washington's Center for Urban Horticulture in 2001, they ravaged
canola crops in Eastern Washington and sliced open hybrid trees in
Oregon, according to a new federal indictment released Thursday.

The activists had decided a year before to focus on genetically
engineered crops, and had debated targets during a secret meeting in
Tucson, Ariz., the indictment filed in U.S. District Court in Seattle
alleges.

Then, sometime before dawn on May 21, 2001, five arsonists fire-bombed
the UW horticulture center, destroying several endangered plants along
with it, the indictment charges.

Four people, Briana Waters, 30, Justin Solondz, 26, Josephine
Overaker, 31, and Kevin Tubbs, 37, were indicted Wednesday in crimes
associated with either the UW fire or another arson in Olympia.

Before Wednesday, only Waters had been charged specifically in the UW
fire. The new indictment adds Solondz as an alleged participant in the
UW fire.

That makes three named suspects in that fire. The third, William
Rodgers, an Arizona bookstore owner, committed suicide in an Arizona
jail cell in December.

Prosecutors say there were five arsonists; the two others have not
been publicly named.

The newest indictment was filed 10 days before a statute of
limitations was to run out on the most serious UW offense use of a
destructive device in a crime of violence, in this case jugs of
gasoline hooked up to timers. Waters and Solondz both face that charge
now.

The U.S. Attorney has charged Overaker and Tubbs in connection with an
Olympia arson, but they have not been specifically charged in the UW
fire.

But all the suspects have been previously charged in connection with a
string of environmental crimes across the West between 1996 and 2001.
An additional 11 people also have been charged in those crimes,
ranging from a fire at an Olympia wildlife laboratory, to the toppling
of an electrical transmission tower in Oregon to a $12 million arson
at a ski resort in Vail, Colo.

The new indictment says Waters, Solondz, Overaker and Tubbs, along
with Rodgers, set out in early 2000 to recruit more activists to their
cause, holding a series of clandestine meetings in four states to
discuss tactics.

In one meeting in Santa Cruz, Calif., one conspirator demonstrated how
to create a fire bomb, prosecutors allege. A few months later, they
contend, Solondz and others visited a Monsanto canola farm in Dusty,
Whitman County, and ruined five acres of the crop. The next spring,
prosecutors allege, Solondz and others cut the bark of 800 hybrid
poplar trees at three farms in Corvallis, Ore., run by Oregon State
University.

Authorities believe Solondz and Overaker are out of the country.
Waters is free pending trial. Tubbs is in jail in Oregon awaiting trial.

The horticulture center has since been rebuilt, at a cost of $7 million.

Craig Welch: 206-464-2093 or cwelch at seattletimes.com

Copyright © 2006 The Seattle Times Company



The Freedom Archives
522 Valencia Street
San Francisco, CA 94110
(415) 863-9977
www.freedomarchives.org 
-------------- next part --------------
An HTML attachment was scrubbed...
URL: <http://freedomarchives.org/pipermail/ppnews_freedomarchives.org/attachments/20060512/5a644f52/attachment.htm>