Ecoterrorism suspects face expanded charges

Federal prosecutors expanded charges against some of the six suspects accused of ecoterrorist attacks in the Northwest, with new indictments handed up against two in Oregon and new allegations against two in Arizona.

The Earth Liberation Front and Animal Liberation Front, described by the FBI as domestic terrorists, took responsibility for all but one of the six attacks in Washington and Oregon between 1998 and 2001 that are the subject of indictments so far.

Targets included the offices of lumber mills in Glendale and Medford, Ore., a high-tension power line outside Bend, Ore., a car dealership and a meat processing plant in Eugene, Ore., and a federal plant research facility in Olympia.

Though two people have now been named as suspects in the 1998 Vail, Colo., firebombing which caused extensive monetary damages, no indictments have been released.

In Eugene, Ore., new indictments against Kevin M. Tubbs, 36, of Springfield, Ore., and Chelsea D. Gerlach, 28, of Portland.

Tubbs was indicted on arson charges alleging he helped firebomb Romania Truck Chevrolet in Eugene on March 30, 2001, destroying 35 sport utility vehicles. If convicted, he could face life in prison. Gerlach, named earlier this week as a suspect in the Vail ski resort arson, was indicted on charges alleging she served as a lookout in the firebombing of Childers Meat Co. in Eugene in 1999, and helped two other people set fires at Jefferson Poplar Farms, in Clatskanie, Ore., in 2001.

In Flagstaff, Ariz., FBI Special Agent Doug Linter testified in U.S. District Court that investigators suspect Prescott, Ariz., bookstore owner William C. Rodgers in arson attacks against the Vail ski resort, as well as wild horse corrals in Burns, Ore., and Rock Springs, Wyo.; the University of Washington Urban Horticultural Center in Seattle and a federal plant research lab in Olympia, Wash. Rodgers was arrested last week on charges he was involved in the firebombing of a government wildlife lab outside Olympia.