Posted on 09/02/2006 9:11:47 PM PDT by beaversmom
STEAMBOAT SPRINGS, Colo. -- Two men who took fruit and vegetables out of a garbage can have been sentenced to six months in jail, a punishment they say is harsh and the only choice they had to avoid a felony on their records.
Giles Charle, 24, of Sumersworth, N.H., and David Siller, 27, of Wayne, Pa., were on their way to the Rainbow Family's annual gathering when they were arrested in June and charged with felony burglary and misdemeanor theft.
Authorities said they took five cucumbers, four or five apricots, two bundles of asparagus spears and a handful of cherries from a garbage can at Sweet Pea Produce. The two pleaded guilty to misdemeanor trespassing Wednesday and the felony charge was dropped.
"We didn't have any intention of committing a crime or doing anything wrong," Charle told the Steamboat Pilot & Today newspaper. "We had just come in town and we were prepared to buy groceries from a store but everything was closed."
Thousands of people were in the Steamboat Springs area at the end of June and early July for the Rainbow Family gathering north of town. At times, the relationship between members of the nomadic group and authorities was tense and a number of citations were issued.
Assistant District Attorney Kerry St. James said the men were facing the felony because they trespassed onto property without permission and took something that did not belong to them. He said the plea bargain was the suspects' decision.
"They had a choice between accepting a deferred felony with 90 days in jail or a misdemeanor conviction with six months in jail," he said. "They agreed to spend the six months in jail."
Don Wirtshafter, an attorney in Ohio who represented many Rainbow Family members over the summer, said Charle and Siller were forced to choose between two evils.
"A suspended sentence would have worked for these boys, but when a prosecutor is really going after you, the best thing you can do is plea," he said. "At best, this case is bizarre."
Charle's mother, Shaune McCarthy Charle, called the jail sentence a joke.
"It's really amazing and unbelievable how taking garbage out of a Dumpster became a felony," she said. "(St. James) is completely incorrigible."
This has been a very good thread, and your posts have contributed very much, I'm in agreement with most of your thoughts on the situation.
In the 60s there were a lot of terrible abuses by law enforcement toward long hairs, as a hippie drifter myself in those days I paid attention to those things and it shook my faith in the system.
Decades later I would like to think that a community can figure out a way to influence outsiders and travelers without crossing the line.
Or unless key facts have been omitted in the posted article. I believe they have been.
I think so. Photo is from here.
The "970-879" phone number in the linked site above is correct for Steamboat Springs.
I know that private property is private property, trespassing is trespassing, and theft is theft, but this place looks like it belongs in the Haiti slums. If the garbage thieves were looking for food in the dumpster from this place, they must have been desperate.
The sentence these guys received is obscene.
Thanks; it was enlightening to me to see the other comments as well. My respect for FR grows every day.
> In the 60s there were a lot of terrible abuses by law enforcement toward long hairs, as a hippie drifter myself in those days I paid attention to those things and it shook my faith in the system.
Yep, I know what ya mean.
> Decades later I would like to think that a community can figure out a way to influence outsiders and travelers without crossing the line.
We're better as a nation now than we were then, and I believe we'll get better as we go. It doesn't mean we get all P.C. and holding-hands-into-the-sunset, either. We (now that we are the establishment) just have to keep coming up with better ways to deal with those who challenge the establishment. Those who are "just passing through" often present the hardest challenges of all.
I'm 54 now, and a lot more conservative and libertarian than I was back then -- but I still retain the belief that things would be better if we could all just get a bong along. ;-)
Huh, it certainly does sound like some folks got out of hand. Throwing rocks and sticks is way uncool when you have a group that big. The officers were wise to retreat.
I guess the good news is that the Rainbowers (presumably) calmed themselves down. I would bet that the rowdy ones were told to "cool it" by the rest of the group. As flaky as the Rainbowers are, they do generally hold tight to a non-violent ethic.
Nevertheless, in a crowd of large numbers, one doesn't want to see missiles flying, period.
That's horrible!
Back when I was in high school there was a Burger King that had trouble with one or two homeless men trying to eat out of their dumpsters. They got tired of it and started giving a free meal once a day to keep it from happening.
> I think so. Photo is from here.
Wow.
> I know that private property is private property, trespassing is trespassing, and theft is theft, but this place looks like it belongs in the Haiti slums. If the garbage thieves were looking for food in the dumpster from this place, they must have been desperate.
No kidding. They may also have figured that the proprietors were like-minded hippies, perhaps.
> The sentence these guys received is obscene.
Yep. After seeing the place, there's no question. Those two guys got seriously shafted.
And just where were these lawyers when these hippies were in the court. They should have fought the charges.
no, they can get a plea to whatever trumped up (and felony would be trumped up) charge they think they can.
As a one time dumpster diver I have to say this is sick. I know that in America, they have anti-diving laws because if someone ate the food and got sick, they could sue the store. But, c'mon its GARBAGE. How many people have "dived" furniture that someone was throwing away? I wouldn't have had a living room in college.
Something is wrong here....I dislike hippys...but jail for eating trash?
Thus the trespassing charge.
This is ridiculous.
They can't. Not as long as it is still on your property.
This obviously was still on the stores property.
Actually it looks like a very nice, well maintained fruit stand.
Yeah if a guy owns a fruit stand he should expect people to come on his land and take his stuff dude.
www.freegan.info
Wha a bunch of bums.
> Yeah if a guy owns a fruit stand he should expect people to come on his land and take his stuff dude.
No, not that owning a fruit stand means he necessarily should invite lame passers-by to take stuff of value. What I meant was, it's not like this was a big fenced-in commercial plant and the hippies were out to rip off The Man's valuables -- rather, they probably thought the guy who ran the place was cool and wouldn't mind if they picked up some discarded fruit.
Hell, I can see myself thinking that, were I in their shoes. I mean -- it was thrown away. Nobody accused them of ripping off something the owner wanted, and as somebody else pointed out earlier in the thread, once you've thrown something in the garbage, your claim to it having any further value to you is tenuous at best.
The issue here is not the value of the discarded food -- everybody agrees that's not the alleged crime. The problem was that the City was sick of hippies, there were thousands of them, and they decided to make an example of these two, and handed them a totally disproportionate sentence. I could see a couple nights in jail being plenty of "example". Six months is completely out of hand. Would the fruit stand owner have supported that sentence, had it been a hungry local boy rather than a transient hippie?
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