A University alumna faces three to five years in federal prison after pleading guilty last week to charges related to a 2001 firebombing that destroyed the University of Washington Center for Urban Horticulture – a crime linked to radical environmental groups.
Lacey Phillabaum, 31, of Spokane, Wash., who graduated from the University with an art history degree in 1996, pleaded guilty in federal court Wednesday to conspiracy to commit arson, arson and use of a destructive device during the UW attack.
Phillabaum and Jennifer L. Kolar, 33, of Seattle are previously unnamed participants in the UW arson and a number of other property crimes claimed by the Earth Liberation Front (ELF) and Animal Liberation Front (ALF) in the West, according to the U.S. attorney’s office of Western Washington.
“These violent acts of destruction are not a valid form of political speech,” U.S. Attorney John McKay said after the hearings in U.S District Court in Tacoma, Wash.
ELF claimed responsibility for the May 21, 2001 UW fire, which destroyed the center’s main hall and caused about 50 faculty members, staff and graduate students to lose papers, books and workspace, according to a UW press release.
The saboteurs believed a professor was genetically engineering poplar trees at the center. ELF issued a statement calling the poplars “an ecological nightmare” for the diversity of native forests.
Kolar said in her plea hearing testimony that she used a knife to cut glass and gain entry to the office of professor Toby Bradshaw, according to the attorney’s office. Saboteurs placed a destructive device in his office, and the ensuing fire destroyed the center.
Phillabaum admitted that she and others carried the destructive device from its hiding place near the center, and she remained outside while others entered the building and set the fire, according to the attorney’s office.
The rebuilding project, finished early last year, cost $7.2 million. UW, the State of Washington and private donors footed the bill.
The arson occurred just more than one year after Phillabaum participated in a panel discussion at the University entitled “Does Property Damage Have a Place in Mass Protest?”, according to a citation in an academic paper posted on a University Web server.
The March 5, 2000, discussion was part of the annual Public Interest Environmental Law Conference.
Phillabaum also admitted Wednesday to planning or participating in two other actions in 2000 and 2001 that aimed to destroy what saboteurs believed were genetically engineered crops, according to the attorney’s office.
In 2000, Phillabaum and co-conspirators destroyed five acres of canola plants being grown by agricultural company Monsanto in Dusty, Wash., according to the attorney’s office.
In March 2001, she and co-conspirators tried to destroy poplar trees at two locations near Corvallis.
Kolar pleaded guilty Wednesday to conspiracy to commit arson, two counts of arson and using a destructive device.
Two others have been charged in connection with the arson, and a third has been indicted by a grand jury. Another man accused of being a co-conspirator committed suicide in December 2005 while in jail in Arizona.
Kolar and Phillabaum were released without bail after entering their pleas. They turned themselves in and have cooperated with ongoing investigations, authorities said.
Under the plea agreement, prosecutors will ask a federal judge to waive mandatory minimum sentences for the charges. The bomb charge alone would normally carry a minimum of 30 years and maximum term of life.
Sentencing is scheduled for Jan. 5.
Phillabaum is not the first former University student to be charged in connection with eco-sabotage. Two former students, one of whom attended the University at the same time as Phillabaum, were among six suspected eco-saboteurs arrested in December and accused of participating in the toppling of a power transmission tower in Bend in 1999.
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The Associated Press contributed to this report.