Posted on 12/13/2005 6:24:51 PM PST by george76
An undercover informant helped investigators tape a conversation with one of the seven...radical environmentalists accused in a series of arson attacks and other crimes...
Existence of the informant was disclosed last week by an investigator in U.S. District Court in Brooklyn, N.Y., during a bail hearing for Daniel McGowan, 31, who faces indictments that he and another man firebombed the office of a wood products mill in Glendale and the office and truck shop of a tree farm in Clatskanie in 2001.
The Earth Liberation Front, an underground group that advocates economic sabotage to stop environmental destruction, took credit for the two fires.
The FBI describes the group as one of the nation's leading domestic terrorist organizations.
Though his family offered to put up their homes and stocks worth about $850,000, McGowan was ordered held without bail pending transport by U.S. Marshals to Oregon, said defense attorney Martin Stolar.
Assistant U.S. 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 bail.
Peifer characterized the trip as hiding out after the arsons, both of which occurred earlier that year.
McGowan was born in Brooklyn, N.Y., but grew up in Rockaway Beach, Queens, N.Y., where he ran track at Christ the King High School...
He graduated from State University of New York at Buffalo... and traveled after college to Thailand. Later he lived in San Francisco, then Eugene, before moving back to New York City...the East Village.
(Excerpt) Read more at azdailysun.com ...
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