Kendall Tankersley (left) with her partner H.E. Martel at an International AIDS Candlelight Memorial in Tuscon.
Posted on 12/14/2006 8:28:08 PM PST by george76
Members of the ecoterrorism gang that torched buildings on Vail Mountain in 1998 will be sentenced in April, a federal judge ordered today.
At a hearing in U.S. District Court in Eugene, Ore., two key members of the gang formally pleaded guilty to federal arson charges, although they already had admitted their role in the multimillion-dollar fires.
They destroyed several mountaintop structures including the popular Two Elk Lodge, a restaurant that has been rebuilt.
During the 10-minute hearing, Chelsea Gerlach and Stanislas Meyerhoff, both 29, acknowledged their guilt when asked by Judge Ann Aiken.
Gerlach responded "yes," and Meyerhoff said, "Yes, I do."
Under plea deals, the former Oregon high-school sweethearts turned radical environmentalists -- she used the codename Country Girl and he was Country Boy -- agreed to have the Colorado charges consolidated with other charges pending against them and 11 other gang members.
The other charges stemmed from ecoterrorism strikes against government buildings, automobile dealerships, electricity lines and similar targets in the Northwest between 1996 and 2001.
Gerlach and Meyerhoff pleaded guilty in July to participating in the Northwest ecoterrorism attacks.
They were arrested in December 2005 in a nationwide sweep of ecoterrorism suspects.
In a related hearing, the judge scheduled Meyerhoff's sentencing for April 10 and Gerlach's for April 18.
Others in the gang who have pleaded guilty also will be sentenced in late April.
more to go...
.
"two key members of the gang formally pleaded guilty"
"Meyerhoff's sentencing for April 10 and Gerlach's for April 18"
Why in the heck does it take 5-6 months to sentence these creeps? They're guilty...throw them in the hold!
>>will be sentenced in April, a federal judge ordered today.<<
Why the long wait?
" A band of eco-terrorists that called itself "The Family" broke a pattern of sabotage in the Northwest by torching a $12 million mountaintop restaurant in Vail in 1998, according to a federal indictment ..."
Ping
Malicious, ineffectual and cowardly: traits that will serve them well in federal prison.
Under federal law, you can't be sentenced until the probation office has completed a Pre Sentence Report. Its a 25-50+ page document that sums up the defendants life, family history, medical history, criminal history, education, employment, facts of the case, related defendants involvement,etc. Once it is completed the prosecution and defense have 2 weeks to file objections to the report. The probation office then determines whether to change anything in the report. If the report isn't changed then at the sentencing hearing the court determines through evidence and exhibits what the proper sentencing range is, etc. Its a long drawn out process to comport with the Federal Sentencing Guidelines.
It has been almost nine years since the Colorado arson attacks...even more years in the Northwest.
Kendall Tankersley (left) with her partner H.E. Martel at an International AIDS Candlelight Memorial in Tuscon.
Clever ACLU lawyers ?
Plea deal... hmmm... I think these were the two that squealed and got the others eventually arrested.
hopefully the jailers will lose the key to their cells once these POS are locked up... let them rot.
At a hearing in U.S. District Court in Eugene, Oregon...
The wheels of justice don't grind slowly...they grind in reverse. What took this so long?
Stanislas Gregory Meyerhoff, 28, who used the alias Country Boy while Gerlach was Country Girl...
One of the others, Josephine Sunshine Overaker, 31, remains at large.
Kevin Tubbs, 37, is in jail in Oregon.
One of them offed himself in jail a little while back.
The four worked with "mastermind" William C. Rodgers, a Prescott, Ariz., bookstore owner who went by the code name "Avalon," according to a federal arrest affidavit.
Rodgers drove the same bluish-silver Toyota pickup truck across the West to transport incendiary devices and to plan the Vail firebombing, which involved seven synchronized mountaintop fires set after midnight, according to the affidavit.
Rodgers killed himself in an Arizona jail cell Dec. 22, so his side of the story will remain untold.
Disclaimer: Opinions posted on Free Republic are those of the individual posters and do not necessarily represent the opinion of Free Republic or its management. All materials posted herein are protected by copyright law and the exemption for fair use of copyrighted works.