Posted on 04/12/2004 5:09:38 PM PDT by Sub-Driver
Earth Liberation Front member gets 42 months for vandalism By SCOTT HARPER, The Virginian-Pilot © April 13, 2004 Last updated: 7:12 PM
Background Coverage: Extreme environmentalists target vehicles, buildings --------------------------------------------------------------------------------
RICHMOND — Decrying environmental sabotage as “extremely troubling” and “arrogant,” a federal judge Monday sentenced a member of the radical Earth Liberation Front to 42 months in prison for a 2002 vandalism spree in greater Richmond that damaged new homes, SUVs, construction equipment and fast-food restaurants.
Aaron Labe Linas, 19, apologized in court for the property attacks – called “direct actions” by ELF, an underground environmental group considered a domestic terrorist organization by the FBI – and said he accepts his punishment.
“I should not be here today,” said Linas, dressed in a dark suit, his friends and family dabbing tears from their eyes at the back of the courtroom. “I should be at school, studying.”
Linas is the first of three former students at Douglas S. Freeman High School in Henrico County to be sentenced for conspiring to cause more than $200,000 in damage to vehicles and structures that ELF views as contributing to greed and environmental ruin. It is the first time in Virginia such a case has come to trial.
Co-defendants John Wade Burton, 19 , and Adam Virden Blackwell, 20 , are expected to receive similar federal prison terms when sentenced Wednesday and later this month.
The trio’s monkey-wrenching exploits often were carried out with kerosene, gasoline, sugar, axes, glass-defacing etching cream and threatening notes. Among the late-night actions against new subdivisions, McDonald’s restaurants and Ford dealerships, they also attempted to blow up a crane at Short Pump Town Center Mall in September 2002, when the 120-store complex was under construction in suburban Henrico County.
Matt Geary and Jeffrey Galston , attorneys for Linas, described their slender young client as bright, caring, passionate and determined. He was a Boy Scout, a camp counselor and had volunteered at a local nursing home.
He also was active in his school’s Friends of the Earth club, but soon became disillusioned by what he saw as corporate power and development interests constantly bowling over environmentalists trying to preserve nature. It was then he turned to ELF, which he found on the Internet.
“Unfortunately,” Geary said, “he allowed his passions for the environment ... to take him down the wrong path, to go too far.”
U.S. District Judge James R. Spencer said the case troubled him. He said Linas, from a comfortable middle-class background in suburban Richmond, had “probably never missed a meal ... had no reason to be angry at the world.”
Yet, Spencer said, Linas and his two fellow activists decided they knew what was best for the environment and society and took action against people and property they deemed wrong.
Spencer called this thinking “an arrogance that is deep and cutting,” and said it represents “the seed of destruction” in a free society.
Linas could have faced a harsher penalty, mostly because he destroyed evidence after discovering the FBI was on his trail.
Furthermore, prosecutors dropped any reference to the crime being an act of terrorism in exchange for Linas, Wade and Blackwell signing a plea agreement and cooperating with authorities.
Since then, Linas has been attending junior college and working a construction job. “Yeah, construction; isn’t that ironic?” Geary said.
Brian R. Hood , assistant U.S. attorney, said he might file papers that could lessen the 42-month prison stay, but described the environmental vandalism as “serious, violent felonies.”
To bad the judge didn't give the punk this message: "No duffus! You belong here now! You should have BEEN in school studying then and not out acting like an idiot!"
Shucks, Aaron, look on the bright side. A whole legion of high school students will look at you... um, "serving the prison community", as it were... and maybe they'll learn from your example. When your radical teachers, who have nothing to lose themselves, tell your peers to go out and vandalize property, maybe they'll stay in school... studying.
Do you really think this little terrorist had conservative parents? More likely, he was their liberal progeny. Either way, as parents they were responsible for raising a responsible member of society, a task in which they failed. So it's only fitting that they bear some of the fiscal liability of his actions.
If more parents were held accountable for the egregious acts of their "little darlings", we'd have a lot less problems in this world.
From where I sit, 42 months is not enough.
Not one word about any monetary compensation to the owners of the homes and property that were damaged. Why not let him work a few years (after his release) to pay off the damage he caused?
You're right. The first concern a property owner that has suffered a loss would be to regain wholeness. To gain restitution for their pain and suffering. Any person that had their car or home destroyed by an environmentalist (or any criminal) would first be concerned with gaining restitution for themselves. Later on, the second thing they would be concerned with is stopping the environmentalist (criminal) from harming even more people.
There are basically two excuses for why most media sources prioritize on the "stop the criminal" aspect and not the "gain restitution aspect". 1) "stop the criminal" caters to, fosters and maintains a collectivist group think mentality and 2) if the media source was to highlight the "gain restitution aspect" -- individual rights orientated/grounded -- that would contradict their first priority. That first priority is to support a collectivist, group-think mentality.
The best way to protect individuals and society is to ensure that restitution has top priority. Retiming wholeness for honest individuals is more valuable than punishing the few (by ratio) criminals. Also, perhaps the best help/education for the criminal would come from having to "pay" his victim restitution for his criminal acts Prison is not a means of reform or education. It is a means to keep dangerous people out of society.
On a wider scope, nearly all media sources fully support punishing Saddam Hussein while most major media sources give at best minimal support to the Iraqi citizens gaining restitution. Major media sources "gleefully" report the most resent deaths in the somber tone of fighting terrorism when in reality each death is a very sad loss in the fight for freedom and restitution.
The Vladimir Lenin School for Boys?
Has to be a hold over from the previous administration. Convicted of "serious, violent felonies", our unrepentant miscreant already has the US Attorney figuring out a way to show that, in his eyes, it really isn't that serious.
Yup...............
I could never wish for anyone in service to our Great Nation to have to contend with the presence of such scum except as prisoners or targets.
To allow any of these criminals the honor of serving in our Military is unthinkable to me.
With the disclaimer that even great parents can have rotten kids, I'm guessing that not establishing values that respect other people's property, helped break those parent's savings.
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