Eightball
Senior Member
- Oct 13, 2004
- 1,359
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http://www.signonsandiego.com/news/state/20050418-1554-ca-suvarson.html
I know this was a rough one for A.P. to print, since they really love those sweet little wackos that are passionately trying to save the earth from us big, bad, wasteful, right-wing fossil fuel wasters.
Anyway..........Yippee!
ASSOCIATED PRESS
3:54 p.m. April 18, 2005
LOS ANGELES A graduate student was sentenced Monday to more than eight years in prison and ordered to pay millions of dollars in restitution for firebombing scores of sport utility vehicles.
William Jensen Cottrell, 24, was convicted in November of conspiracy to commit arson and seven counts of arson for an August 2003 vandalism spree that damaged and destroyed about 125 SUVs.
Prosecutors estimated the total damage was about $2.3 million.
U.S. District Judge R. Gary Klausner sentenced Cottrell to 100 months and ordered him to pay $3.5 million in restitution. Cottrell hung his head upon hearing the sentence.
Vandals who targeted dealerships and homes in the San Gabriel Valley east of Los Angeles set the vehicles on fire and used spray-paint to deface them with slogans such as "Fat, Lazy Americans," "polluter," "smog machine" and "ELF," an acronym for the Earth Liberation Front, a radical environmental group.
Cottrell, a doctoral candidate in the physics department at the California Institute of Technology in Pasadena, was acquitted of using a destructive device Molotov cocktails in a crime of violence. That was the most serious charge he faced and it carried a sentence of at least 30 years in prison.
Defense lawyers argued that Cottrell had agreed with two friends to spray-paint vehicles, but was surprised when they began to hurl Molotov cocktails.
Federal prosecutors have identified former Caltech students Tyler Johnson and Michie Oe as "fugitive co-conspirators" in the case. It is believed that both have fled the country.
Prosecutors also alleged that Cottrell tried to minimize his role and place the blame on Johnson and Oe.
Cottrell was arrested in March 2004 after authorities tracked e-mails that Cottrell, using an alias, sent to the Los Angeles Times. He told the newspaper in the e-mails that he was involved in the SUV attacks and affiliated with the Earth Liberation Front.
Klausner in January denied Cottrell's bid for a new trial. Cottrell had claimed the court improperly barred his attorneys from presenting evidence that he suffered from Asperger's syndrome, a type of autism that he claimed made it difficult for him to understand the intentions of the alleged accomplices.
I know this was a rough one for A.P. to print, since they really love those sweet little wackos that are passionately trying to save the earth from us big, bad, wasteful, right-wing fossil fuel wasters.
Anyway..........Yippee!
ASSOCIATED PRESS
3:54 p.m. April 18, 2005
LOS ANGELES A graduate student was sentenced Monday to more than eight years in prison and ordered to pay millions of dollars in restitution for firebombing scores of sport utility vehicles.
William Jensen Cottrell, 24, was convicted in November of conspiracy to commit arson and seven counts of arson for an August 2003 vandalism spree that damaged and destroyed about 125 SUVs.
Prosecutors estimated the total damage was about $2.3 million.
U.S. District Judge R. Gary Klausner sentenced Cottrell to 100 months and ordered him to pay $3.5 million in restitution. Cottrell hung his head upon hearing the sentence.
Vandals who targeted dealerships and homes in the San Gabriel Valley east of Los Angeles set the vehicles on fire and used spray-paint to deface them with slogans such as "Fat, Lazy Americans," "polluter," "smog machine" and "ELF," an acronym for the Earth Liberation Front, a radical environmental group.
Cottrell, a doctoral candidate in the physics department at the California Institute of Technology in Pasadena, was acquitted of using a destructive device Molotov cocktails in a crime of violence. That was the most serious charge he faced and it carried a sentence of at least 30 years in prison.
Defense lawyers argued that Cottrell had agreed with two friends to spray-paint vehicles, but was surprised when they began to hurl Molotov cocktails.
Federal prosecutors have identified former Caltech students Tyler Johnson and Michie Oe as "fugitive co-conspirators" in the case. It is believed that both have fled the country.
Prosecutors also alleged that Cottrell tried to minimize his role and place the blame on Johnson and Oe.
Cottrell was arrested in March 2004 after authorities tracked e-mails that Cottrell, using an alias, sent to the Los Angeles Times. He told the newspaper in the e-mails that he was involved in the SUV attacks and affiliated with the Earth Liberation Front.
Klausner in January denied Cottrell's bid for a new trial. Cottrell had claimed the court improperly barred his attorneys from presenting evidence that he suffered from Asperger's syndrome, a type of autism that he claimed made it difficult for him to understand the intentions of the alleged accomplices.
