Posted on 09/27/2007 8:35:08 PM PDT by NormsRevenge
SACRAMENTO - A federal jury on Thursday found a 29-year-old environmental activist guilty of conspiring to burn down or blow up a northern California dam, a genetics lab, cell phone towers and other targets.
Eric McDavid of Foresthill, Calif. faces up to 20 years in prison and a $250,000 fine for what FBI agents said was as an eco-terrorist plot in the name of the Earth Liberation Front, a shadowy, loose-knit group of environmentalists that has claimed credit for arsons throughout the West.
McDavid and two others were arrested in January 2006 after purchasing bottles of bleach, a car battery, potassium chloride and other items prosecutors said were being used to build plastic explosives.
McDavid's two co-defendents pleaded guilty last year in exchange for testifying against McDavid.
Jurors listened to them and testimony from an undercover FBI informant before deliberating for 11 hours and returning the guilty verdict.
McDavid's attorney argued he was a victim of entrapment because the FBI informant provided money and help to buy the items.
U.S. Attorney McGregor W. Scott called the verdict a message the ELF "is misdirected in its tactics and a danger to the community."
"Eric McDavid and others like him choose to put innocent civilian lives in jeopardy for the sake of advancing their own extreme views," Scott said in a statement.
The Nimbus Dam on the American River near Sacramento, and the U.S. Forest Service's Institute of Forest Genetics in Placerville, in the foothills east of Sacramento, were among the alleged targets.
Now indict his lord and master, Al Gore.
Good grief!
LOL! This guy is Eyegore to Al Gore’s Dr. Frankensteen.
Faces up to ONLY 20 years? I wish this case had been in Texas, not California.
Good. More of them should get the same.
Protesting the destruction of the environment by destroying the environment. Clever.
YES !!!!!!
OMG I was just in Foresthill last month !
Blowing up the Nimbus dam would be like a flea bite. How stupid. The damage would be repaired and life would go on.
And the Forest Service facility; ditto. The terrorists would accomplish nothing except to pay for the vacation homes of their lawyers, and land themselves in prison.
The guy sounds like a stupid shill.
Waterboard the jerk, immediately, and find out who his co-conspirators are/were.
“McDavid’s two co-defendents pleaded guilty last year in exchange for testifying against McDavid. “
Well... you run with rats, you gonna eat some poison sooner or later.
I'll guess 2 years and $25,000 fine, if that, at sentencing.
But ... it's a start.
It wouldn’t have mattered, federal sentencing guidelines are the same everywhere.
I can only imagine what they are going to do to this wimp in prison.
Would not want to be him, no sireee!
I hope it bankrupts his family if he appeals this conviction. Why in the h$ll did it take the jury 11 hours to convict him...
Love to know how strong his convictions are after a year or so with bubba, knowing that he has many, many years to go. Bet he gets religion real quick.
WooHoo!
Thanks for the ping!
when is ChristianeAmampour going to do a lengthy special about how environmentalism produces terrorists?
I wondered the same thing. Possibly the entrapment allegation?
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