3 arraigned in ecoterror bomb plot

Wed., Jan. 18, 2006

Associated Press

SACRAMENTO, Calif. – Three activists were arraigned Tuesday on federal charges that they plotted to blow up a U.S. Forest Service research lab and other targets.

Eric McDavid, 28, of Foresthill, Calif., Zachary Jensen, 20, of Monroe, Wash., and Lauren Weiner, 20, of Philadelphia were ordered held pending bail hearings later this month in U.S. District Court.

They were arrested Friday after leaving a Kmart store in Auburn, a Sierra foothill community east of Sacramento. Authorities said they were buying ingredients and equipment to make a bomb and had discussed detonating it at the Forest Service’s Institute of Forest Genetics in Placerville.

Other potential targets included the Nimbus Dam on the American River near Sacramento, a cellular telephone tower, a power station, banks, trucks, mountaintop-removal projects in West Virginia and Communist Party offices, according to an affidavit filed by the FBI.

Agents allege the three are members of the Earth Liberation Front, a loosely knit group of environmental activists that has claimed credit for arson blazes in recent years throughout the West, primarily at construction sites.

The charge – conspiring to use fire or explosives to damage property – was based on information from a paid source, surveillance by government officers and a notebook found on McDavid. The notebook contained what appeared to be a diagram of the Institute of Forest Genetics, as well as pipe bombs and a list of ingredients for making explosives.

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