OPINION/COMMENTARY

Ecoterrorist Will Spend Seven Years in Federal Prison

A federal judge ruled on April 18 that 24-year-old William Jensen Cottrell should serve more than seven years in federal prison and pay more than $3.5 million in restitution for an August 2003 firebombing spree that damaged or destroyed some 125 sport utility vehicles at dealerships and homes outside Los Angeles. Cottrell will be required to serve at least 85 percent of the eight-year, four-month sentence handed down by U.S. District Judge R. Gary Klausner. Cottrell was convicted in November 2004 of seven counts of arson and one of conspiracy. He was acquitted of the most serious charge, using a destructive device in a crime of violence, which would have carried a sentence of at least 30 years in prison. Cottrell, a Ph.D. candidate in physics at the California Institute of Technology, and two former Caltech students threw Molotov cocktails at Hummers and other SUVs after spray-painting them with such slogans as "Fat, Lazy Americans" and "ELF," for the environmental terrorist group Earth Liberation Front. Cottrell said at trial that he was a member of ELF, and the group claimed responsibility for the firebomings. Warrants have been issued for the arrest of Cottrell's co-conspirators, Tyler Johnson and his girlfriend, Michie Oe, who are believed to have fled the country. "Acts of ecoterrorism have been on the rise over the past four years," commented Sandy Liddy Bourne, director of legislation and policy for the American Legislative Exchange Council, "causing millions of dollars in damage to private property and research facilities. It is heartening to see a conviction with a stiff sentence that will send a message to radical environmental activists and animal rights zealots. They consider violence a means to advance a political agenda, but that will not be tolerated in the United States."....

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