Posted on 09/21/2005 8:53:19 AM PDT by Behind Liberal Lines
BINGHAMTON, NY—A U.S. soldier has testified in federal court Tuesday (September 20) that he was splashed with human blood by anti-war protesters during a 2003 protest.
The soldier, Staff Sgt. Rachon Montgomery, was working as an army recruiter on March 17, 2003, the day that four protesters threw their own blood around a recruiting center in Lansing, NY, a suburb of Ithaca. As a result of the incident, press reports indicate, Montgomery was tested for blood-borne illnesses such as HIV and hepatitis.
In addition to Montgomery, the protesters also poured blood on the American flag, a military banner and the walls and floor of the center.
The protesters, Clare Grady, Teresa Grady, Peter De Mott and Daniel Burns, all of Ithaca, are currently on trial in Federal Court in Binghamton on charges of conspiring to impede the duties of U.S. officials and damaging or injuring federal property and officials. The conspiracy charge, the most serious, carries up to six years in prison and a $250,000 fine.
The protesters, who have dubbed themselves “the St. Patrick’s’ Day Four,” while admitting to their actions, claim they have done nothing wrong. The four, who are representing themselves, claim that their actions were legally justified because they did it to stop the United States from invading Iraq.
That defense was accepted in an earlier state court trial in Ithaca, which resulted in a hung jury.
However, according to the New York Times, District Court Judge Thomas McAvoy “is allowing the defendants to talk about their state of mind at the time of the protest in their opening arguments, but not to raise their belief that the Iraq war was illegal or immoral.”
The group’s supporters, many of whom are from the Ithaca, have conducted a daily vigil outside the courthouse, protesting, making speeches and conducting mock trials of the Bush administration. 
In response, a counter protest 
, made up of veterans and others from around the state, has demonstrated their solidarity with the troops and the President.
I apologize. Read your post wrong. A sore spot. How knows what they are smoking or on. Just when one starts to forget the days gone by. Some event like this reopens old wounds. Best to let it go.
No worries.
The 'Rats are attacking our military today in Iraq the same way they attacted them (you) 30-40 years ago. It annoys me no end. Thing is, some of us remember, and lots of us see the 'ratmedia for the evil bastards they are ... and we won't be the 'silent majority' this time. Too bad FR wasn't around in 1965.
The best part is that these idiots are representing themselves.
That usually a fatal mistake.Hope the jail door dosent hit then in the a$$ .
Well, now. Isn't that just special?
I hope they like prison food.
Well, you know, regardless, the litany of charges....
defacing public (federal) property...
it's a shame.
Boy, you can say that again....ah, never mind, I'll do it for ya, "Too bad FR wasn't around in 1965."
Yea, look at the shape of those morons. I'm sure a decent lawyer is easily spinning their heads in court. They are so self absorbed they think they can defend themselves in a REAL court of law. BYE BYE
"If one of those freaks has AIDS or Hepatitis, it should be assault with a deadly weapon."
Since HPV and several other STD's are lifethreatening if untreated, and quite a few people carry HPV, at least, I'd consider it ADW anyway. These "people" are lucky they survived to go to trial.
Biological attack.
Terrorist act
They claim *now* to not recall.
It was DEFINITELY a biological attack on a military installation on US borders.
But remember: they say they "support the troops."
3/29/2005
The backstory on Ithaca radicals
Zealots pour own blood over Army-Marine Corps recruiting center
Four members of the Ithaca Catholic Worker (ICW) are due in federal court in Binghamton in May, facing felony charges and a possible six years in prison. Anti-war vandals Peter DeMott, Daniel Burns, Clare Grady, and Teresa Grady poured jars of their own blood inside the local Army-Marine Corps recruiting center on March 17, 2003. A sympathetic Ithaca jury refused to convict the “St. Patrick’s Four.”
But this was not an isolated act by a few overzealous peaceniks. Peter DeMott, the patriarch at age 58, has made a career out of holy hellraising. Twenty-five years ago, he was part of an anti-nuclear group which interpreted the biblical concept of “beating swords into plowshares” literally. In 1980, DeMott broke into a shipyard in Connecticut, stole a security van, and rammed it repeatedly into the nuclear submarine USS Florida, for which he was sentenced to a year in prison. In 1982, he and six others broke into another shipyard, hammering and pouring blood on several missile hatches aboard the USS Georgia. The group – including the woman he would marry, Ellen Grady, and her brother, John -- received prison sentences of two months to one year. They called these actions “witnessing.”
After a lengthy hiatus, DeMott renewed his agitating in December 1998, when he was charged with a felony and two misdemeanors for defacing the walls of the federal building in Syracuse. In August 1999, he and another man parked themselves on the steps of the Pentagon, earning 60 days in federal prison. In May 2000, DeMott was arrested at the Navy training range in Vieques, Puerto Rico. In August 2001, he was part of a Voices in the Wilderness group arrested for obstruction and criminal trespass at the US mission to the UN in Manhattan. In November 2001, he was arrested, along with 36 others, for trespassing at the School of the Americas at Ft. Benning, Georgia.
In December 2002, DeMott, his daughter Marie DeMott Grady, and Daniel Burns, were arrested for staging a “die-in” at the local recruiting office. A week later, DeMott and fifteen others were arrested for a disruptive protest at the White House. In May 2003, DeMott and Burns spent nine days in Owego County jail for trespassing at a Lockheed Martin facility in January, and then six days in Tompkins County jail for the die-in.
In late 2003, DeMott and Burns violated the U.S. ban on travel to Iraq to “witness” American atrocities against Iraqi civilians, as part of Christian Peacemaker Teams. A few months later, DeMott admitted in open court to having been arrested over 25 times, and having spent a considerable amount of time in prison.
Like DeMott and his wife, Daniel Burns, aged 44, is a member of Jonah House (JH), a “nonviolent resistance group” that cloaks itself in Christian piety. All three are signatories to a JH manifesto exhorting servicemembers to desert, which they read aloud after tossing their blood about the recruiting center. The communique states that they “knowingly and willingly” encourage desertion in violation of federal law, and includes the text of the two specific statutes criminalizing their conduct.
Burns has previously traveled to Iraq as part of Voices in the Wilderness (VITW) delegations, an organization that has been investigated and fined by the Treasury Department’s Office of Foreign Assets Control. Members engaged in illegal export, import, and travel within Iraq; fines could have been averted simply by obtaining a license. More recently, VITW members have been prosecuted by the Justice Department for similar violations. VITW’s lawyer, Loyola University (New Orleans) law professor Bill Quigley, also traveled to Iraq as part of VITW “fact-finding tours,” and is currently the legal advisor to the “St. Patrick’s Four.”
It also bears noting that Daniel Burns is married to Jessica Stewart, a local honcho for the National War Tax Resistance Coordinating Committee. The NWTRCC is a partner organization of the War Resister’s League, an openly Communist international organization founded in 1923.
Along with DeMott, Stewart was also convicted on charges stemming from the November 2001 School of the Americas protest. Audrey Stewart, Jessica’s sister, is a member of the School of the Americas Watch, and serves as the head of their Legal Collective Working Group.
Clare Grady, aged 46, sister of Ellen, John, and Teresa, also took part in a Plowshares action in 1983, breaking into Griffiss AFB in Rome, New York. She and six others hammered dents into B-52 bombers and poured blood on the engines, receiving two to three years in federal prison for their trouble. In open court last spring, she admitted to having traveled to Iraq in 1999, in violation of the U.S. ban. VITW lists her as a local contact.
In February 2000, a VITW press release reported that Clare Grady, two other ICW members, and seven others attempted to enter the New York State National Guard post near Syracuse; all were charged with criminal trespass. At the Republican National Convention in NYC last August, she participated in a die-in on Broadway, calling it “magical.” She was also part of the December 2002 recruiting office die-in, joining DeMott and Burns for six days in jail. Clare Grady and VITW comrade Neil Golder, incidentally, are the founders of the Ithaca Peace Vigil.
Teresa Grady, 39, was one of those removed, along with DeMott, from the Vieques training range in May 2000. Another Grady sister, Mary Anne Grady Flores, was also removed; when she returned to the naval base a few days later, she was arrested and held for trespassing on federal property.
What is most interesting is that possibly 14 of these radicals live together on a commune just west of downtown Ithaca: the DeMott family (6), the Burns family (4), and four others. Clare Grady founded and runs the Finger Lakes Unschoolers Network on Elm Street, which is where many of their children are indoctrinated. Clare’s younger daughter, 12-year-old Leah Grady Sayvets, offers babysitting services on the Ithaca Hours website, noting that she “spends lots of time with toddlers” -- probably DeMott’s and Burns’ younger children, while they’re off protesting, in court, and in prison.
Furthermore, DeMott and Burns brought four teenagers to the December 2002 recruiting center die-in: DeMott’s own daughter, two of his nieces, and the daughter of another ICW clan. The girls were arrested, charged, and convicted just as the adults, and made to write revolutionary screeds on why they were so glad to be a part of it. Did they also have to donate blood to the jars dumped at the recruiting office? How ironic that the ICW agitates against military recruiting and brainwashing, while never giving their own children the chance to form independent opinions.
Finally, given their close quarters and rejection of traditional family structures, one can only speculate as to the extent of free love and inbreeding. It wouldn’t be the strangest thing they’ve done. The day before Burns and DeMott left for Iraq, well-wishers held a little sendoff party for them at the Autumn Leaves bookstore. “After Burns and De Mott spoke,” an Ithaca Times article reported, “the roomful of activists sang, lit candles . . . and, in a moving ceremony, gathered in a circle to lay hands on Burns and De Mott.”
http://tinyurl.com/c8k59
The Berrigan connection
Trials of anti-war protesters were a dramatic part of the Vietnam era. Philip and Daniel Berrigan, priests who grew up in Syracuse, were convicted of burning files from a draft board office in 1968. Philip Berrigan, who died in 2002, spent a total of 11 years in prison for convictions related to his activism.
"Dan and Phil were like uncles," said Teresa Grady's sister, Mary Anne Grady Flores. "I grew up with them in my living room."
The Berrigans inspired and worked with the Gradys. In 1973, John Grady, father of Teresa and her siblings, was one of the "Camden 28," a group of anti-war activists who went on trial for breaking into a draft board office to destroy records. They were acquitted on all charges after a three-and-a-half-month trial.
John Grady moved his family to Ithaca shortly after the trial to take a job teaching at Ithaca College.
The St. Patrick's Four also include Teresa's sister, Clare, and her brother-in-law, Peter De Mott, who is married to Ellen Grady, another sister.
The non-Grady member of the group is Burns, who also comes from a politically-minded, Irish-Catholic family. Burns is the son of former Binghamton mayor John Burns and the brother of the Burns Sisters, a folk band based in Ithaca.
He is the 10th of 12 children and a latecomer to activism, having first worked 20 years in the film business as an assistant director or production assistant on films including "Ghostbusters" and "JFK."
http://tinyurl.com/brn9g
The facts of the case are incontrovertible. Teresa B. Grady, 38, Clare Grady, Peter De Mott, 57, and Daniel Burns, 43 admit their crimes. In fact, Clare Grady is quite brazen in her admission of guilt, telling the Ithaca Journal, “We are willing to testify to what we know and what we've done, any place at any time.”
The defendants were confident as they sat in the Tompkins County Courthouse, knowing that a jury of their peers — peaceniks, communists, and America-haters — would never vote to convict them. As expected, the trial ended with a hung jury. Tompkins County’s impotent District Attorney, George Dentes, announced that he was dismissing all charges against the defendants.
To his credit, Dentes is handing the case off to the United States Attorney for the Northern District of New York, who has agreed to begin federal prosecution. In announcing his judgment, Dentes admitted to the Ithaca Journal, “If we used the same evidence, and had the same rulings, during a trial in Tompkins County Court, we'd probably end up with another hung jury.” However, with a federal trial, the jury will be comprised of residents outside of Ithaca, where citizens actually care about enforcing the law.
The anti-war criminals are being aided by Loyola University law professor Bill Quigley, who hopes that troubles in Iraq will continue so as to increase sympathy for the defendants. Gleefully, Quigley told the press, "I think the situation in Iraq is less popular now than it was two months ago."
The rule of law is under assault in Ithaca because this city is a hotbed of vile anti-Americanism. This hatred has intensified in recent years, with little opposition from fair-minded Democrats. For example, Ithaca community leader Peter Demott had this vile reaction to the September 11 attacks:
“The plane that crashed into the Pentagon — and presumably the other three airplanes also — had depleted uranium on them that was being used as ballast. And when those planes crashed, of course, that depleted uranium was dispersed into the air and soil and water and into the fire that resulted…And once again, it is kind of an example to me of how the airline industry and how this Corporate America is always interested in putting profit ahead of the people, ahead of the health of human family.”
And an associate of the Ithaca Catholic Worker, identified only as Maryann on a publicity video, announced:
“My 21-year-old son understands that what has happened at the Trade Centers is in response to many, many years of very severe U.S. policy that has affected those in other countries--citizens who have felt the brunt of our oppression, of our military build-up, of our military strikes against innocent people who are angry because of what we have done for many years.”
In this context, it is quite easy to see why anti-war criminals cannot be convicted in Ithaca. The city has been poisoned. The mayor, Carolyn Peterson, is a socialist dimwit, laughed at by both Republicans and Democrats alike. The city council is comprised entirely of kooky far-leftists who publicly opposed the war in Afghanistan, the war in Iraq, and any action taken by the United States military generally.
http://tinyurl.com/dayyt
What about a violation of his Civil Rights. Oh, that does not count since he is fighting an immoral war right. The Lefties can use the constitution to when the need it but not for anyone else.
They sure as hell do not support a bath.
St. Patrick's Four
http://www.stpatricksfour.org/bios.php
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