Briana Waters sentenced to six years, appeal pending

Here's a main media article about this case. I don't like reading that Waters was fighting with her legal counsel (Robert Bloom) towards the end. Hopefully That wasn't core to the screwed up courtroom experience. It is pretty amazing that all of the members of this group except for the two who were threatened that they needed to testify against a new person (one who had not already been indicted) said that Waters wasn't there, or even that they barely knew who she was. How is that possible if Briana Waters was a participant that most of them said she wasn't there.

http://www.theolympian.com/southsound/story/484209.html
A federal judge sentenced a former Olympia resident Thursday to six years in prison for her role in an arson that destroyed a University of Washington research center seven years ago.

Briana Waters, 32, who has maintained her innocence, was ordered to pay nearly $6.1 million to reimburse the UW and state for the cost of rebuilding the university's Center for Urban Horticulture.

U.S. District Judge Franklin Burgess ruled a longer prison sentence was warranted because Waters' action qualified as terrorism under federal statute, a source of debate between federal prosecutors and Waters' attorney before and during the three-hour sentencing hearing.

Prosecutors had recommended Waters receive a 10-year sentence, although sentencing guidelines allowed up to 40 years of incarceration. The mandatory minimum sentence is five years.

Prosecutor's view

First Assistant U.S. Attorney Mark Bartlett said a 10-year term was warranted because of Waters' role in the "most serious arson to occur in this district in the last quarter-century," and since she had taken no responsibility, "choosing instead to blame everyone but herself for her current predicament."

Waters' attorney, Neil Fox, requested that the minimum sentence be partially suspended and that Waters serve 18 months. He asked Burgess to note the 250 letters submitted to the court from Waters' supporters as well as her community service.

He urged the judge not to minimize the human toll of separating Waters' 3-year-old daughter from her mother.

"Ms. Waters is innocent," he told the judge. "She disagrees with the jury verdict, but she accepts it ..."

Fox said her client would appeal. Prosecutors also didn't rule out appealing.

Waters, dressed in a khaki-colored jumpsuit, told Burgess she is neither the evil person the government has portrayed nor a martyr, as depicted by others.

"My cause is to take care of my family," she said, sobbing.

At her request, Robert Bloom, her lead lawyer during trial, was not in the courtroom during sentencing. Waters told the judge she did not agree with his approach.
Waters' mother and partner also asked Burgess for a short prison term.

Bartlett said the arson victimized hundreds of people, including professors, graduate students and taxpayers.

Linda Chalker-Scott, an associate professor at the center at the time of the blaze, told Burgess the arson forced her to change jobs and terrified her two children, who used to play in the woods and wetlands around the building while she worked.

A jury found Waters guilty of two counts of arson March 6. The counts stem from the single act but spell out the different functions of the targeted building — as being involved in interstate commerce and belonging to an institution that receives federal funding.

The jury deadlocked on charges of conspiracy, possession of an unregistered firearm and use of a destructive device in a crime of violence, which carried the mandatory prison sentence of 30 years.

Prosecutors had presented evidence that Waters was a member of a cell of the Animal Liberation Front and Earth Liberation Front known as "The Family," whose members set or attempted to set at least 17 fires between 1996 and 2001 throughout the Northwest and in Colorado. More than a dozen members have been arrested in connection with the arsons, but Waters was the first to go to trial.

The group wanted to destroy corporate and government operations that members thought were harming the environment and animals. Prosecutors said they targeted the UW research center under the mistaken belief that genetic engineering of poplar trees was taking place there.

Waters served as a lookout as four co-conspirators broke into the horticulture center and placed a device that burst into flame about 3 a.m. May 21, 2001.

Waters, who had lived in Oakland, Calif., has said she likely was asleep in Olympia when it occurred. She was attending The Evergreen State College at the time.

Two co-conspirators testified against her in exchange for lighter prison sentences. The ringleader committed suicide in jail shortly after his arrest. The last member of the group is a fugitive.

Prosecutors also presented evidence that Waters obtained the rental car used during the arson and provided a room behind the Olympia home where she was living for construction of the devices used in the arsons.

here is a good example of nazi US federal justice