The following is from the Sac Bee, and you can't enter the site unless you register with them. So far this has been kept out of the media in N California outside of Sac.
These are scary sounding elfians.
FBI: Trio scouted targets
Nimbus Dam among sites visited by the eco-terror suspects, affidavit says.
By Denny Walsh -- Bee Staff Writer
Published 2:15 am PST Wednesday, January 18, 2006
Story appeared on Page A1 of The Bee
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Three people described as members of an "eco-terrorist" organization scouted Nimbus Dam, a nearby fish hatchery and a forest genetics facility as possible targets to bomb, according to an FBI affidavit filed Tuesday in federal court.
Three days after visiting the sites, Eric Taylor McDavid, 28, Zachary O. Jenson, 20, and Lauren Weiner, 20, were arrested in Auburn as they emerged from a Kmart with materials that the FBI suspects were to be used to build explosive devices.
The three are charged by criminal complaint with conspiring to use fire or explosives to damage property. They appeared in Sacramento federal court Tuesday and were ordered held pending bail hearings. There is no opportunity to enter a plea to a criminal complaint in federal court.
The case against the three is based on extensive electronic surveillance and an FBI "confidential source who is deeply embedded within the subjects' cell" of the Earth Liberation Front, according to the affidavit of FBI Special Agent Nasson Walker.
According to the affidavit, McDavid told the confidential source that he was "introduced ... to anarchist thought" by Ryan Daniel Lewis, a 22-year-old Newcastle man who pleaded guilty in October in federal court to arson and attempted arson in a series of firebombings in Placer and Amador counties. Lewis has been identified by the FBI as an Earth Liberation Front member.
The organization is described in Walker's affidavit as an "eco-terrorist group that advocates ... (i.e. criminal activity) against targets identified as contributing to the destruction/exploitation of the earth and its resources."
McDavid, Jenson and Weiner researched potential targets and visited Nimbus Dam, California Department of Fish and Game's fish hatchery in Rancho Cordova and the federal forest genetics facility Jan. 10, according to the affidavit. FBI agents followed the trio and the paid FBI informant working undercover to the three sites. At the U.S. Forest Service's Institute of Forest Genetics facility in Placerville, agents watched the four enter the property and walk around the grounds. Their movements were filmed by the agents with a video camera.
After they departed, McDavid told the group that human casualties resulting from their planned bombings would be acceptable, according to a report from the FBI's confidential source.
At a Jan. 9 meeting with the source, according to the affidavit, agents learned that the group intended to obtain materials for a homemade explosive device from grocery and hardware stores, and to begin preparing the chemicals to be used in the device by following a recipe in a book titled "Poor Man's James Bond."
As the three defendants moved around the Sacramento region last week they discussed and bought materials they would need to build explosive devices and agents captured some of those conversations on video and audio recordings, according to the affidavit.
The three were arrested, the affidavit says, after leaving the Kmart store on Bell Road carrying bags containing respirator masks, rubber gloves, bleach, glass cleaner and glassware.
McDavid was carrying a notebook with "a hand-drawn diagram of what appeared to be the grounds" of the forest genetics facility, the FBI affidavit says. The notebook also contained hand-drawn diagrams of "what appeared to be pipe bombs, as well as lists of ingredients for creating homemade explosives."
Assistant U.S. Attorney Ellen Endrizzi requested McDavid, Jenson and Weiner, who have no prior criminal records, be held without bail as flight risks and dangers to the community.
A bail hearing for Weiner is scheduled Friday. Bail hearings for McDavid and Jenson are scheduled Tuesday. All three are in the Sacramento County Main Jail. The next step for the defendants will be indictment by a federal grand jury after which they will be arraigned and will enter pleas.
Endrizzi told U.S. Magistrate Judge Gregory G. Hollows on Tuesday that the defendants took a vow to break off all contact with their families, and they are essentially homeless, roaming the United States by hitchhiking and "train hopping."
According to journal entries on two Web sites maintained by Jenson and cited in the affidavit, McDavid and Jenson have traveled to Washington, Oregon, California, Nevada, Texas, Oklahoma, Florida, Pennsylvania, West Virginia, Indiana, Tennessee, Missouri and Colorado since last February.
McDavid and the confidential source were in Philadelphia in June for a protest at the 2005 Biotechnology Industry Organization's annual trade conference, where McDavid offered training to others on how to construct and use Molotov cocktails, according to the affidavit.
The affidavit says McDavid advocated violent protest and told the confidential source of his desire to kill a police officer, expressing regret that he was not involved in an altercation between protesters and police that resulted in one officer's death.
Weiner was present at the June 21 fatal fracas in Philadelphia, the affidavit recounts, and "expressed her support for the individuals who assaulted the officer."
McDavid identified his targets to the source as banks, commercial trucks, mountaintop removal projects in West Virginia, communist party offices and a facility in Placerville engaged in the genetic engineering of trees, the affidavit states.
He prefaced the disclosure of his plans by warning the source that, if the source is working with law enforcement, "he would kill him/her," according to the affidavit.
McDavid and Jenson have traveled to Washington, Oregon, California, Nevada, Texas, Oklahoma, Florida, Pennsylvania, West Virginia, Indiana, Tennessee, Missouri and Colorado since last February.
Just your average Urban Traveler of the Sinister type...
Ping to post #39...
Obviously an excellent candidate for release on his own recognizance. Why is this pillar of decency in jail?
Next to last paragraph in reply #39...
Thanks so much for this info, Grampa Dave.
Did you guys see this? I WANT TO KNOW WHO IS FINANCING these freaks?
McDavid identified his targets to the source as banks, commercial trucks, mountaintop removal projects in West Virginia, communist party offices and a facility in Placerville engaged in the genetic engineering of trees, the affidavit states.
According to journal entries on two Web sites maintained by Jenson and cited in the affidavit, McDavid and Jenson have traveled to Washington, Oregon, California, Nevada, Texas, Oklahoma, Florida, Pennsylvania, West Virginia, Indiana, Tennessee, Missouri and Colorado since last February.
Actually, this was on ABC News Channel 7 in the SF Bay Area. The story ran close to 5 minutes! It stunned me so, that I had to Tivo it and call the wife in!
And this judge saw fit to grant this bull dyke bail?
Hang 'em High ~ Bump!