Two former University students are among six suspected eco-terrorists arrested in December during a nationwide crackdown against violent environmental demonstrators.
Chelsea Dawn Gerlach, a South Eugene High School graduate, and Sarah Kendall Harvey, a former Eugene resident, are both suspects in the toppling in 1999 of a power transmission tower in Bend.
Gerlach is being held in the Lane County jail after her Dec. 7 arrest, while Harvey was arrested in Arizona that same day and faces charges in connection with a Dec. 1998 fire at U.S. Forest Industries in Medford.
The 28-year-old Gerlach pleaded not guilty during a hearing held Dec. 9 in federal court in Eugene. She was also charged with participating in two other arsons, and suspected of participating in arson at a ski resort at Vail, Colo. in 1998.
She faces 13 counts of aiding and abetting arson relating to a fire started at the Jefferson Poplar Farms in Clatskanie, Ore. in May 2001 as well as one count of aiding and abetting arson at Eugene’s Childers Meat Company in 1999.
The Associated Press reported Harvey, 28, worked at Northern Arizona University after leaving the University of Oregon. She faces up to 20 years if convicted, according to the AP.
According to court documents, police found several books when they arrested Gerlach that will be used as exhibits in the trial, including manuals on lock picking, advanced radio detonation techniques and how to make a counterfeit I.D. Police also found a fake I.D. using Gerlach’s picture and the name Sally Phinney, according to the documents.
If convicted on all counts, Gerlach faces up to 290 years in prison. After graduation in 1994, Gerlach went to Evergreen College before attending Lane Community College in 2000-01, according to the Vail Daily News.
Although she never officially attended any classes at the University, Gerlach was accepted to the school. She was involved in several demonstrations on campus including one advocating the release of University lab animals, University spokeswoman Pauline Austin said.
Harvey attended the University between fall 1995 and spring 1999. The Associated Press reported Harvey pleaded guilty to three misdemeanors after her arrest following a nonviolent anti-logging protest in 1997.
The prosecution against Gerlach relies heavily on two former arsonists who will testify that she was the lookout person during the fire at the Childers Meat Company. One of the former arsonists, Jacob Ferguson, admitted starting the fire at the meat company, as well as several other arsons in the Northwest, but has not admitted involvement in the 1999 Bend power tower toppling, according to court documents.
According to AP reports, the other suspected arsonist who will testify is Stanislas Meyerhoff, indicted along with Gerlach. He faces life imprisonment without parole. Ferguson has not been charged with any crimes. Gerlach’s public defender Craig Weinerman believes the evidence against his client is not enough for conviction, RockyMountainNews.com reported. At a Dec. 16 hearing, he argued that Meyerhoff and Ferguson turned on Gerlach because of deals offered to them by federal prosecutors, The Denver Post reported.
Weinerman recently failed in an attempt to allow Gerlach to be released until the beginning of her trials, the first set for Feb. 28. Judge Thomas M. Coffin ordered Gerlach be detained because of the severity of the crimes, according to court documents.
Environmentalist groups Earth Liberation Front and Animal Liberation Front took responsibility for most of the crimes, according to AP reports.
Because of the suicide of William C. Rogers, who was arrested in Arizona along with Harvey, Coffin ordered Gerlach to be put on suicide watch, according to AP reports.
Family members of Gerlach released a statement that stated, “The person we know and love is incapable of such acts and we have absolutely no reason to believe in her criminal involvement in these cases.”
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