Four animal rights protesters faced federal charges of harassing and threatening researchers at UC Berkeley and UC Santa Cruz. The protestoers claim they were only exercising their free speech rights in a demonstration at a professor’s home. -DB
San Francisco Chronicle
March 20, 2009
By Henry K. Lee
Four animal-rights protesters pleaded not guilty Thursday in federal court to charges that they harassed and threatened researchers at UC Berkeley and UC Santa Cruz, saying they had been exercising their free-speech rights.
Joseph Buddenberg, Maryam Khajavi, Adriana Stumpo and Nathan Pope are law-abiding citizens who are among the first defendants to be charged under a new federal statute that stifles the First Amendment by mislabeling legitimate speech as terrorism, their attorneys said outside court.
“I am a victim of free-speech suppression,” Khajavi, 20, of Pinole said after entering her not-guilty plea in U.S. District Court in San Jose.
At issue for the activists and their attorneys is the constitutionality of the Animal Enterprise Terrorism Act, which makes it a federal crime to interfere with the operations of an animal enterprise through force, violence or threats while placing a person in a “reasonable fear of death or serious bodily injury.” The law carries a penalty of up to five years in prison.
Khajavi, Buddenberg, 25, of Berkeley, Stumpo, 23, of Long Beach and Pope, 26, of Oceanside (San Diego County) were indicted March 12 by a grand jury in San Jose on one count each of conspiracy and one count of violating the federal law.
According to a criminal complaint filed last m
onth, the four are part of a larger group of protesters who targeted at least nine UC Berkeley and UC Santa Cruz professors at their homes in El Cerrito, Berkeley, Oakland and Santa Cruz. The complaint says the protesters wore masks and chanted slogans such as, “You’re a murderer,” in hours-long protests at researchers’ homes.
The protesters’ car was traced back to Khajavi’s home, where police also found Pope and Stumpo.
In July, Buddenberg and Pope were part of a group videotaped at a cafe leaving flyers containing res
earchers’ home addresses and the message: “Animal abusers everywhere beware we know where you live,” the complaint said.
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