Posted on 06/04/2008 8:08:31 AM PDT by jazusamo
The activist pleads guilty in two arsons and will serve at the Sheridan federal prison
Tre Arrow, a radical environmentalist who was once one of the FBI's most-wanted fugitives, pleaded guilty Tuesday to two counts of arson.
Appearing before U.S. District Judge James Redden, Arrow agreed to serve to 78 months in federal prison, with credit for time served since March 2004 in jails in Canada and the United States.
Arrow, who will be formally sentenced Aug. 12, will serve about two years and four months at the Sheridan Federal Correctional Institution.
His sentence could be further reduced by 54 days for good behavior for each year he serves. As part of the plea agreement, Arrow agreed to pay restitution for financial losses by the arson victims.
Arrow could have faced a maximum of 40 years in prison. Each count carried a mandatory sentence of five years and a fine of $500,000.
Arrow pleaded guilty to setting fire to concrete-mixing trucks from Ross Island Sand and Gravel in Portland on April 15, 2001, and setting fire to logging trucks in Eagle Creek near Mount Hood on June 1, 2001.
Arrow entered the packed courtroom wearing a white jumpsuit and smiling and talking with his attorneys, Paul Loney and Bruce Ellison.
Arrow was one of two radical environmentalists sentenced Tuesday. In Eugene, Jacob Ferguson was sentenced to five years on probation for his role in a string of 20 fires across the West from 1996 to 2001 to protest logging and environmental damage to forests.
Ferguson later helped federal officials round up a militant cell of arsonists called "the Family," which caused more than $40 million in damage.
Part of Arrow's plea agreement stipulates that upon his release, he cannot knowingly associate with groups that encourage unlawful acts. His probation will last two to three years, prosecutors said. He also waived his right to appeal.
Arrow, a onetime candidate for Congress, legally changed his name from Michael Scarpitti. He was charged in a 14-count federal indictment with helping destroy the concrete trucks and with firebombing the logging trucks.
He became a fugitive after he was indicted and was arrested in March 2004 in British Columbia on local shoplifting charges. He was extradited to the United States in February.
He said on his Web site that he accepted the plea deal because he didn't want to risk "spending the rest of my life in prison."
"He's a very gentle and kind man," said Nancy Dorr, a longtime friend who met Arrow at a raw food festival. Dorr said Arrow told her last week about the plea and the 78-month sentence.
"This was the best deal he was going to get," she said. "I'm glad he took it because I don't think he would have gotten a fair trial."
Dorr said it appeared that Arrow has suffered in jail.
"He did not look good when he came back to Portland," she said. "But when I talked with him last week, he was very upbeat. . . . This was a very good deal."
Arrow's plea and Ferguson's sentencing were the latest in a series of high-profile victories by federal officials against radical environmentalists who have carried out attacks around the West.
Earlier this year in Sacramento, Eric McDavid was sentenced to nearly 20 years in prison for conspiring to destroy a northern California dam, a genetics lab and other targets. McDavid was convicted in March for masterminding what FBI agents described as an eco-terrorist plot in the name of the Earth Liberation Front.
In Seattle, Briana Waters is awaiting sentencing Friday after she was convicted of arson in a 2001 attack on a University of Washington plant research center.
I believe that is a mistake, her sentencing has been postponed indefinitely the last I could find.
Tre Arrow ping!
So, destroying other people’s property, terrorizing communities is not a serious crime? Am I on glue, or are these people getting off scott-free?
Tre Bien. [sic]
He was and I believe still is one of the unwashed nutjobs.
“He’s a very gentle and kind man”
This is still a wrist-slap. All these people should be put away for decades as an example to all others who might think of emulating their careers.
It took a damn long time for the Feds to finally start taking eco-terrorists seriously, they should make sure these scalps are publicly nailed to the barn door for all to see and learn from.
We cannot mollycoddle terrorists at home and demand life terms for terrorists abroad.
“Arrow pleaded guilty to setting fire to concrete-mixing trucks from Ross Island Sand and Gravel in Portland on April 15, 2001”
And now he’ll be sitting in a cell surrounded by concrete walls. lol Gotta love it.
His brothers Une and Due must be so proud.
All heart, no brain. Unless it was a very small family operation with only one concrete truck, or one logging truck, they probably filed an insurance claim, got a brand new truck, and hauled even more logs and concrete with it! Oh, as for saving the environment, doubtless the fires themselves made a mess, what with the vehicle’s fluids either spilling on the ground, or being burnt into the skies as raw pollution. Oh, and since those trucks have been rendered useless, there is the necessary expenditure in energy to haul them off and recycle them, plus the need created to replace them with new vehicles, which of course took plenty of materials and energy to do, too.
Fortunately, Tre can spend some time in a very controlled environment where his damaging impact on the environment can be contained and maybe he gets a clue or two along the way.
Its a Ying and Yang thing...
Agree...This criminal got off way too easy just as most of The Family did, every last one of them should have done at least 20 years, IMO.
Soooooo, Mr. EnviroWhack-o. The smoke from your fires benefits the Earth, how?
He is our state resident enviro whacko sufferer for all the other whackos to yell conspiracy conspiracy.
He fell out of a tree sitting or of that ledge you show him on and cracked his melon good.
Was in a coma for awhile at taxpayers expense up at OHSU.
Not that I believe one should not recieve medical care but this guy has been an envirowhacko anarchist but sure has sucked the govt breast and destroyed $$$$$$$ private property.
IOW he is a cock roach.
"He's a very gentle and kind man," said Nancy Dorr
Eff you, Nancy. He’s a violent scumbag who should have spent the rest of his life in prison.
And you should be embarrassed to be associated with him.
In Eugene, Jacob Ferguson was sentenced to five years on probation for his role in a string of 20 fires across the West from 1996 to 2001 to protest logging and environmental damage to forests. Ferguson later helped federal officials round up a militant cell of arsonists called "the Family," which caused more than $40 million in damage.
Jacob wears “The Mark of the Squealer.”
The only thing scummier than an arsonist/terrorist is an arsonist/terrorist who rats out his arsonist/terrorist friends to save his own unshowered, two-way ass.
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