Not Guilty!
Posted on 03/06/2008 11:00:53 AM PST by jazusamo
TACOMA — A 32-year-old violin teacher from California was found guilty this morning of two counts of arson for the 2001 fire at the University of Washington's Center for Urban Horticulture.
A federal jury found that Briana Waters, a former Olympia resident, was among a group of ecosaboteurs who torched the center in the predawn hours of May 21, 2001, causing about $1.5 million in damage. The center was later rebuilt at a cost of about $7 million.
Waters faces up to five years in prison for each count of arson.
But the jury, which had been deliberating since Friday afternoon, couldn't reach a verdict on three other counts, including one that would have resulted in a mandatory minimum sentence of 30 years in prison.
In all, Waters faced five counts: two counts of arson, one count of conspiracy and two charges stemming from the possession and use of a homemade time-delayed gasoline bomb used to start the fire. Use of the device in a crime of violence carries a mandatory minimum sentence of 30 years in prison.
The Earth Liberation Front claimed responsibility for the fire because it believed, mistakenly, that a UW researcher was genetically engineering trees.
Late Wednesday, jurors sent a note to U.S. District Judge Franklin Burgess that indicated they were unable to reach a unanimous decision on all counts and asked how to proceed. The judge asked the jurors if they had reached unanimous verdicts on at least some of the charges, and the jurors responded "Yes."
Prosecutors urged the judge to accept whatever verdicts had been reached, but Burgess refused and sent the jury home Wednesday night. Burgess this morning agreed to accept the partial verdict.
(Excerpt) Read more at seattletimes.nwsource.com ...
Ping!
It is clear from this story that we need to ban violins. Especially assault violins.
Oh Happy Day! I was concerned last night when the news was reporting the jury was having a hard time reaching a verdict.
She and her ilk should be marched off to gitmo. Stop treating these clowns and the drug gang terrorists as if they are somehow different from any other terrorist.
Stanislas Gregory Meyerhoff - (5-23-07) - 13 years
Kevin Tubbs ----------------- (5-24-07) - 12 years, 7 months
Chelsea Dawn Gerlach ------- (5-25-07) - 9 years
Darren Todd Thurston---------(5-29-07) - 3 years, 1 month
Suzanne Nicole Savoie--------(5-31-07) - 4 years, 3 months
Sarah Kendall Tankersley-----(5-31-07) - 3 years, 10 months
Joyanna Lynn Zacher---------(6-01-07) - 7 years, 8 months
Nathan Fraser Block----------(6-01-07) - 7 years, 8 months
Daniel Gerard McGowan-----(6-04-07) - 7 years
Jonathan Paul-----------------(8-01-07) - 4 years, 3 months
An older article in the Eugene Weekly News with pics and some background.
Frankly I’m surprised the jury came in with guilty verdicts on any counts but I’m glad they did.
Agreed, and though the majority have been sentenced to federal prison many got pretty light sentences, IMO.
Gotta say, her actions are the definition of IRONIC. She wants to destroy GM trees, and instead does the opposite and destroys regular old trees.
I hope they lock her away for the maximum 30 years. Someone has to send a message to nutcases that they will lose freedom (and access to everything they love) for an extremely long time.
Good News.
“Ten members of “The Family” sentenced last year.”
Thanks for posting that. If you listen to the media you would think these eco terrorist are immposible to find.
Evil sometimes comes in pretty packages!
Washington state, need WE SAY MORE? She is a victim too! I bet she will get 5 hours of community service. Hey if she keeps this up she will move up to community organizer and be elegible for the office of the President just like our hero Hussien
I’ll bet she gets more than community service. I think she’ll get 5 years on each of the two guilty verdicts, but she’ll serve them concurrently.
Bu-ra-rum like a dischord on a huge organ.
Cheers!
Oh, she couldn’t possibly be guilty, she teaches violin, and is so pretty.
Reminds me of a (true) story I was told by someone who was at a KKK meeting here in Tennessee in the early 1960s. The person who told me this story was a young kid when his Dad took him to the KKK meeting, and they burned a cross in this neighbor’s yard (the neighbor was a white man, the KKK believed in terrorising equally).
I was told the reason his righteous father was there to terrorize this man and his family was because the ones hiding behind sheets wanted to teach him a lesson about not supporting his family, being a wife, kid beater, etc.
Only problem was, the father who took his son to the meeting, the father in the sheets, was the biggest child molestor (his own daughters, grandaughters, etc.) in the community. He just covered up his crimes with his standing in the community, you know, he was the pillar of the community.
A skinny, pretty little violin teacher needs to stick to violin, and quit playing judge and jury. Apparently, she and her cohorts aren’t even smart enough to realize they attacked the wrong target, so we don’t really need them dictating their moral values on us. Especially if they choose to become terrorists, criminals to show us how morally superior they are to others.
Thanks for that story, it’s an appropriate comparison.
It stood out when I read what she said for the magazine interview years ago. She believed arson was an appropriate action as long as no one was hurt.
That is legally and morally wrong and for a young adult to think otherwise only tells me she had a very loose upbringing, she deserves whatever she is sentenced to, probably more.
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