Bari v. FBI: Judi's Daughter Lisa & Folk Singer Utah Phillips to Testify in Court Today

Bari's Daughter Lisa & Famed Folk Singer Utah Phillips to Testify in Court Today; Oakland Police Defense Turns on FBI

OAKLAND, CA - In the ongoing civil rights lawsuit pitting Earth First! against the FBI and Oakland Police Dept. (OPD), Judi Bari's 21-year-old daughter Lisa Bari will take the stand on Wednesday to discuss the harrowing experience her mother went through when she was bombed and then blamed for it. She will detail the effect on Judi and her family of being accused, being afraid of other assassination attempts, and being told that the investigation would be dropped with no results. The house was torn apart by FBI agents, and the experience made a strong impact.

Also to appear on the witness stand Wednesday is legendary folk singer Utah Phillips, who accompanied Judi Bari for the full two days prior to the May 24, 1990, car-bomb attack. Phillips observed Judi's activities first-hand, such as attending an alliance-building meeting with local loggers in Mendocino County. He stayed in Bari's house the two nights before May 24 and last saw her at 11 pm the night of May 23. He is expected to testify about the type of activity the plaintiffs were involved in when the bombing occurred.

In court news this week, FBI Special Agent Frank Doyle sweated through a third day on the witness stand in a tangle of contradictions and lapsed recall. Doyle refused to acknowledge that his sworn statements in deposition were accurate. Doyle also claimed that he never looked at the final version of the affidavit used to obtain search warrants and to eventually arrest the plaintiffs.

As OPD lead counsel Maria Bee stood to cross-examine Doyle, an edge of exasperation and defensiveness was present in the line of questioning she put forth. She aggressively grilled him on his denial of providing false information to Sgt. Chenault (who signed the affidavit), including the placement of the bomb based on visible evidence, the alleged matching of nails in the bomb to nails found in a bag in the car, and the alleged connection to violent activities elsewhere. In regard to this latter point, it was this prior knowledge and supposition that set the tone for the entire investigation that followed. Ms. Bee's questioning of Doyle about what he had in fact told Sgt. Chenault, revealed a gaping split between the FBI and OPD defense strategies which the jury witnessed.

According to prior testimony from OPD defendants, they obtained their information from FBI agents Doyle, Buck and Sena. But as Doyle's testimony makes clear, the FBI is not taking responsibility for the claims made to a judge in order to obtain warrants, and instead prefers to characterize its role as assisting a local agency. Clearly, the OPD attorneys must defend their clients not just from the EF! attorneys' accusations but the twisted testimony of their co-defendant.