Eco-terror indictments

Feds charge 11; five alleged to be behind '98 Vail fire

Todd Hartman, Rocky Mountain News

Published January 21, 2006 at midnight

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A five-year reign of destruction orchestrated by a band of eco- vandals who struck from Seattle to the high country of Colorado came crashing down Friday with the indictments of 11 people on federal charges of domestic terrorism.

The 65-count indictment, announced by U.S. Attorney General Alberto Gonzales in Washington, D.C., includes allegations that four of the 11 - plus an unindicted co-conspirator - were behind the 1998 fire at the Vail ski resort that caused $12 million in damage and set a devastating standard for sabotage in the name of environmental preservation.

In all, the grand jury indictment covers 17 acts committed from 1996 through 2001 in five states. Most were in the Pacific Northwest and ranged from arsons at U.S. Forest Service facilities and government research labs to fires at meat plants, a lumberyard and a Chevrolet truck dealership.

Throughout the 83-page charging document, prosecutors outlined a litany of attacks and tactics that included oaths of secrecy among defendants, the use of false identification, dark clothing and masks, spray-painted messages to law enforcement and efforts to spread signature bomb- making techniques to unrelated vandals in hopes of misleading investigators.

"The indictment tells a story of 4 1/2 years of arson, vandalism, violence and destruction claimed to have been executed on behalf of the Animal Liberation Front or Earth Liberation Front - extremist movements known to support acts of domestic terrorism," Gonzales said.

"Today's indictment proves that we will not tolerate any group that terrorizes the American people, no matter its intention or objective."

Friday's charges, returned by a grand jury convened in Eugene, Ore., follow a series of arrests that grabbed headlines in early December, when authorities arrested six of the 11 defendants in four states.

It was after those initial arrests that prosecutors alleged two were suspected of participating in the Vail fires. They were an Arizona bookstore owner, William C. Rodgers, and an Oregon woman, Chelsea Dawn Gerlach.

But that pair, along with three others, weren't formally tied to the Vail sabotage until Friday, when their alleged role in the arson was included in the indictment. Rodgers, who committed suicide in an Arizona jail cell late last month, was named as an unindicted co-conspirator.

Others allegedly linked to the Vail fires: Josephine Sunshine Overaker, 31; Stanislas Gregory Meyeroff, 28, of Charlottesville, Va.; and Kevin Tubbs, 36, of Springfield, Ore.

Of the 11 defendants named in the indictment, eight have been arrested. Three - including Overaker - are at large. Federal officials believe they left the country to avoid prosecution, according to the indictment.

The 11 include two suspects who were arrested this week, Jonathan Christopher Mark Paul, 39, of Ashland, Ore.; and Suzanne Nicole "India" Savoie, 28, of Applegate, Ore. Both were ordered held without bail, pending further hearings.

A criminal complaint filed in federal court in Eugene accused Paul, a firefighter, of setting firebombs that burned down a horse slaughterhouse in 1997. ALF claimed responsibility for that fire, which caused an estimated $1 million damage.

Savoie, who works in a group home for the developmentally disabled, is accused of serving as a lookout for a fire in 2001 that destroyed offices of a lumber mill. ELF claimed responsibility for that fire.

The other remaining defendants are Joseph Dibee, 38; Sarah Kendall Harvey, 28, of Flagstaff, Ariz.; Daniel Gerard McGowan, 31, of New York City; Rebecca Rubin, 32; and Darren Todd Thurston, 34. Dibee and Rubin remain at large.

Consequences for the alleged eco-terrorists could be severe. Some face cumulative charges that could put them in prison for the rest of their lives , said Bryan Sierra, a spokesman for the Department of Justice.

But their fate was of little concern to the man who used to represent the Vail region in Congress.

"I can tell you, these people are thugs," said former U.S. Rep. Scott McInnis, who often railed against so-called eco-terrorism when he chaired the House of Representatives' Forests subcommittee.

"The image I'm sure they'll try to present as their defense is that they were Robin Hood saving society from a ski area building a lodge," McInnis said. "And as a result of their actions, of course, the ski area did build their log lodge, but with twice as many logs as they would have in the first place."

For Coloradans, the indictment may begin to close the book on one of the state's enduring mysteries: who torched the mountaintop Two Elk Lodge in a middle-of-the-night inferno that shocked the public for its audacity and thrust what had been a bitterly fought environmental battle over Vail's expansion onto a national stage.

Green activists had been embroiled in a legal and political battle over the ski resort's desire to add 885 acres of skiing terrain, concerned the resort would consume important habitat for the rare Canada lynx.

After the fires, a shadowy movement known as the Earth Liberation Front claimed credit for the blaze, blaming the resort for threatening the lynx. But clues were few. Authorities didn't get a solid break for two years, when a hunter discovered 5-gallon gasoline cans hidden amid trees not far from the fires.

To the public, the investigation appeared to go into hibernation. Even Vail officials, who rebuilt the Two Elk Lodge and other buildings damaged in the attack, acknowledged they had moved on.

But federal law enforcement officials, in ways that have yet to become clear, began getting cooperation from informants who had participated in some of the attacks. Over the past year, the informants, working with authorities, recorded other members on tape discussing past attacks. From there, it appeared, long- standing oaths of secrecy among a group that used to refer to itself as the "family" unraveled.

News of the indictment drew praise from Adam Aron, chairman and chief executive officer of Vail Resorts.

"On behalf of all of those who have a special place in their hearts for Vail Mountain, I would like to thank and congratulate the many law enforcement bodies who worked so hard over such a long period of time to find the individuals who are allegedly responsible for the shocking Vail arson in 1998," Aron said in a statement.

Most of the arsonists' techniques were crude, involving tools such as plastic, gasoline- filled buckets, sponges, milk jugs and homemade timers. And sometimes, members committed slapstick gaffes, including one member who was arrested for shoplifting when members went to steal materials for an arson in Washington state.

But they also were crafty. In one case, they drilled a hole in a meat-packing plant in Oregon and poured fuel through the opening. In another instance, they spread nails in the parking lot of a Forest Service building to slow emergency vehicles.

And for a long time, they stayed quiet and eluded authorities.

In fact, it appears that at least some of the members had moved on to new lives: the last action cited in the indictment occurred in 2001 and at least one of the defendants, Meyerhoff, had moved to the East Coast.

Appearing before a federal judge in Eugene last month, Meyerhoff appealed for mercy: "I hope, I pray the courts will be merciful with those who renounced these crimes and moved on to be students and professionals."

Named by the grand jury

• The indictment covers 17 acts committed from 1996 through 2001 in five states, mostly in the Northwest. They included fires at U.S. Forest Service facilities and at construction sites.

Trail of destruction

Oct. 19, 1998: Arsonists set seven fires on top of Vail Mountain causing $12 million damage. The Earth Liberation Front claims responsibility in an e-mail.

May 21, 2001: ELF pulls off a coordinated arson attack on an Oregon poplar farm and the University of Washington Center for Urban Horticulture.

Aug. 1, 2003: The group burns down a 200-unit condominium under construction in San Diego.

Aug. 22, 2003: 14 SUVs and a Hummer dealership are firebombed in Los Angeles. William Cottrell, a Caltech graduate student, is convicted and sentenced to an eight-year prison term. ELF denies he is part of the organization.

April 23, 2004: ELF claims responsibility for setting three house fires in Washington. The Building Industry Association of Washington offers a $100,000 reward for information leading to a conviction of anyone responsible for the fires.

Dec. 9, 2005: Six people from New York, Virginia, Oregon and Arizona are indicted on "eco-terrorism" charges, including several of the attacks mentioned above.

Dec. 22, 2005: William C. Rodgers, 40, a suspect in the Two Elk Lodge fire in Vail and alleged mastermind behind numerous ELF firebombings, commits suicide in a Flagstaff, Ariz., jail cell.

hartmant@RockyMountainNews.com or 303-892-5048 The Associated Press contributed to this report.

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