Ecoterrorist gets seven years
EUGENE, Ore. – Declaring that a fire set at a tree farm was terrorism because it was intended to influence legislation, a federal judge sentenced a New York man Monday to seven years in prison for his part in arsons claimed by the Earth Liberation Front.
Daniel McGowan was the ninth of 10 people to be sentenced after pleading guilty to conspiracy and arson for their parts in a string of 20 arsons from 1996 through 2001.
He also was ordered to pay his share of $1.9 million in restitution.
Responsibility was claimed by a Eugene-based cell of the Earth Liberation Front and Animal Liberation Front called The Family. Damage totaled $40 million.
Judge Ann Aiken told McGowan, the son of a New York city transit cop, that he was a coward for donning a mask and setting fires to scare people rather than working positively to protect the environment.
She said she doubted the sincerity of his remorse when a Web site raising money for his legal defense carried nothing from him denouncing his crimes.
“You are not a poster child for the environment,” Aiken said. “You are an arsonist.”
McGowan had pleaded guilty to conspiracy and arson in fires set at the Superior Lumber Co. office in Glendale, Ore., in January 2001, and the Jefferson Poplar Farm in Clatskanie, Ore., in May 2001.
Aiken declared the tree farm fire to be terrorism because the communique issued afterward made reference to potential legislation to curb radicals, but cut one year from the eight-year sentence recommended by prosecutors in recognition of McGowan’s help getting other defendants to plead guilty.
Assistant U.S. Attorney Stephen Peifer said McGowan joined The Family in 2000 after taking part in anarchist riots in Seattle to protest World Trade Organization meetings.
Primarily interested in stopping genetic engineering, McGowan helped a Midwest cell of the Earth Liberation Front attack a U.S. Forest Service laboratory in Wisconsin in 2000, but has not been charged in that case, Peifer said. He said McGowan also spiked trees destined for sale in Oregon, but was not charged.
Defense attorney Amanda Lee argued that McGowan had put radicalism behind him, retiring from The Family in 2002 and returning to New York, where he was born, and was working for a women’s advocacy law firm and doing volunteer work for the homeless.
McGowan’s wife, who married him after his arrest, made a tearful plea for mercy, saying she was shocked to learn of his past, which was so different from the man she loved.
McGowan added his own statement, saying he got sick to his stomach before the arsons, but took full responsibility for his actions and regretted them. At the same time, he felt threats to the environment were dire.