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US AR protestor cuts deal

ALF-SG | 20.03.2010 19:46 | Animal Liberation | World

Two 'ALF' activists agreed plea bargain following UCLA protests

Kevin Richard Olliff, 22, pleaded no contest Friday to felony stalking and conspiracy charges, a day after Linda Faith Greene, 62, pleaded guilty to similar charges. Both are affiliated with the Animal Liberation Front, an underground network of activists that has claimed responsibility for sabotaging animal research labs, setting fires, flooding properties and making death threats against researchers.

Last year, Los Angeles County grand jurors indicted Olliff and Greene on charges that they had harassed UCLA scientists who use animals in their research and held threatening protests near the homes of executives of the POM Wonderful juice company.

Olliff and Greene were among five activists named in a 2008 injunction that barred contact between animal rights activists and UCLA researchers.

As part of a negotiated settlement, prosecutors said Olliff signed a plea agreement saying “I admit that I am an animal rights activist who engaged in demonstrations targeting specific professors, researchers and business people at the personal residences and at their workplace, including the UCLA campus."

Olliff faces up to three years in state prison, and is scheduled to be sentenced in May

ALF-SG
- Homepage: http://www.alfsg.org.uk/

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This trial proved the ALF is not a 'gang'

20.03.2010 20:08

January 26, 2009 Judge David S. Wesley ruled that the Animal Liberation Front is not a “gang.” The government had tried to find two animal rights protestors guilty of being “gang members.” Judge Wesley stated that the prosecution’s expert Lt. Butte had “misled the grand jury. The ALF does not meet the legal requirements to be considered a gang. Their primary goal is to save animals, not commit crimes.” That charge was dismissed though other charges remain.

This ruling stems from the preliminary hearing in the case USA vs Linda Faith Greene, 62 and Kevin Richard Olliff, 23. Greene and Olliff are animal rights activists who protested and demonstrated against animal researchers. The alleged victims were animal researchers at UCLA, Dr. Lynn Fairbanks and Dr. Dario Ringach. They also protested against an employee of POM Wonderful. POM uses animal research in their advertising to try to support claims that their juice helps men with erectile dysfunction.

The activists protested at the homes and work places of the researchers and POM employee. The two activists were originally charged with stalking, conspiracy to commit stalking, threatening a public officer or school employee and conspiracy to commit against three victims for a total of ten counts each. This is the first time the California stalking law has ever been used against a protestor.

NOT ALF


it doesn't say why!

20.03.2010 21:19

The supportkevin.org site doesn't say why he plea-bargained; all the stuff on that site is from before the trial.

Though I can probably guess why; fear of a massively repressive sentence and no hope of a fair trial?

confused