2 guilty in Vail arson
Joe Garner, Rocky Mountain News
Published December 14, 2006 at midnight
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.
Associated Press contributed to this report.
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