Well, what do ya know?! Some Leftists really have left the country after all!
...They'll make good prey for bounty hunters to collect, too.
Posted on 04/18/2005 8:50:40 PM PDT by NormsRevenge
LOS ANGELES (AP) - A graduate student was sentenced Monday to more than eight years in prison and ordered to pay millions of dollars in restitution for firebombing scores of sport utility vehicles.
William Jensen Cottrell, 24, was convicted in November of conspiracy to commit arson and seven counts of arson for an August 2003 vandalism spree that damaged and destroyed about 125 SUVs.
Prosecutors estimated the total damage was about $2.3 million.
U.S. District Judge R. Gary Klausner sentenced Cottrell to 100 months and ordered him to pay $3.5 million in restitution. Cottrell hung his head upon hearing the sentence.
The judge said he felt sorry for Cottrell, a doctoral candidate in the physics department at the California Institute of Technology in Pasadena.
"What a talent to have wasted," Klausner said. "There's only one person to blame for that, and I'm sure Mr. Cottrell understands that it's him."
Vandals who targeted dealerships and homes in the San Gabriel Valley east of Los Angeles set the vehicles on fire and used spray-paint to deface them with slogans such as "Fat, Lazy Americans," "polluter," "smog machine" and "ELF," an acronym for the Earth Liberation Front, a radical environmental group.
Cottrell told the judge he was sorry for "any suffering" he caused to owners of the dealership and SUVs that were damaged during the attack. He said his political and environmental beliefs will not change - but his actions will.
"There's no way I'd ever be involved with anything like this remotely," he said.
Cottrell was acquitted of using a destructive device - Molotov cocktails - in a crime of violence. That was the most serious charge he faced and it carried a sentence of at least 30 years in prison.
Defense lawyers argued that Cottrell had agreed with two friends to spray-paint vehicles, but was surprised when they began to hurl Molotov cocktails.
Federal prosecutors have identified former Caltech students Tyler Johnson and Michie Oe as "fugitive co-conspirators" in the case. It is believed that both have fled the country.
Prosecutors also alleged that Cottrell tried to minimize his role and place the blame on Johnson and Oe.
Cottrell was arrested in March 2004 after authorities tracked e-mails that Cottrell, using an alias, sent to the Los Angeles Times. He told the newspaper in the e-mails that he was involved in the SUV attacks and affiliated with the Earth Liberation Front.
Klausner in January denied Cottrell's bid for a new trial. Cottrell had claimed the court improperly barred his attorneys from presenting evidence that he suffered from Asperger's syndrome, a type of autism that he claimed made it difficult for him to understand the intentions of the alleged accomplices.
Liberals lack the (R) Reason gene : )
Other people are gonna be using his ass for the next 8 years.
So9
A year in federal pen is 11 months and 1 day and thats WITH good behavior.
Crap.
Half the worlds computer geeks meet the standards for having Asperger's Syndrome.
So9
His environmental beliefs may not change his enviroment certainly will.
I once had two dummies light and throw a molotov cocktail at an apartment complex where a party was going on right in front of me. They never looked in their mirrors until I turned on my red lights and siren. Got them both 10 years (before parole) because of the penal code section I used. Simple arson would have had them out in under two.
You guys are completely right, but that ain't gonna stop the probable coming torrent of Asperger's trial defenses. This judge didn't buy it, but others will.
Oh believe me! I know a few CalTech Phd grads and they are not all that smart.
They may be brainy but that's about it. Very little common sense.
My alma mater, the University of Colorado, will probably jump at the chance to get him. They might even devise a way for him to teach classes from his cell by computer link.
Fortunately, I graduated in 1960, before the scuzball-leftists took it over.
hahahahah..........HAHAHAHAHAHAHAHAHAHAHAHAHA!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!ahem....LOLOLOLOLOLOLOLOLOLOLOLOLOLOLOLOLOLOLO!!!!!!!!!!!!!!ahem...sorry...LMAO!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!
He's lucky that he got off with only eight years for the terrorist acts he committed.I think the sentence would have been a lot longer if he was an anti abortionist who burned down clinics.The double standards never end in this country.
Terrorist Attack!
This guys is going to wish he never heard of terrorist attack
Or
Tear Ass Attack for that matter either
After the first 5 car pile up on his hersey highway!
Sic'em Bubba!
Well, what do ya know?! Some Leftists really have left the country after all!
...They'll make good prey for bounty hunters to collect, too.
12 Monkeys is an excellent film... and an example of what these crazies are willing to do...
Come to think of it, don't think I've heard anything at all about the ELF since that time......no fires tied to them that I've heard of.
Cottrell caught a load because he never accepted responsibility for what he did. He went to trial, trying the usual BS (Aspergers, etc) to evade conviction. You'd think a doctoral student could do SOMETHING right.
And his co-arsonists fled the coop and are now fugitives.
Hard time is ten times harder for a non-professional criminal like him. Tough!
Hey, Cottrell....how's the food?
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