FBI Settles With Environmentalist

[PARAGON]

<Table>
<H1>FBI Settles With Environmentalist</H1>
<H2>Josh Connole was mistakenly jailed in connection with SUV arsons. He will
receive $100,000.</H2>By David Rosenzweig
Times Staff Writer

November
15, 2005

The FBI has agreed to pay $100,000 and issue a letter of regret
to an environmental activist who was mistakenly jailed as a suspect in a string
of arsons and vandalism at four SUV dealerships in the San Gabriel Valley in
2003, his lawyers said Monday.

Josh Connole, who spent four days behind
bars before being freed, sued the FBI, contending his civil rights had been
violated and his reputation destroyed.

The attacks, carried out in the
name of the radical Earth Liberation Front, destroyed or damaged more than 125
SUVs. A Caltech graduate student, William Cottrell, was later convicted and
sentenced to prison in the case.

Had Connole's suit gone to trial, the
FBI would have been up against testimony from a former federal prosecutor who
said she warned an FBI supervisor that his agents had no probable cause to
arrest Connole.

The 27-year-old Connole, who now lives in Oregon, said
Monday he was pleased with the settlement and hoped it would send a message to
the law enforcement community that "you can't throw people's civil rights out
the window in the name of fighting terrorism."

Connole's attorneys,
William Paparian and John Burton, said the $100,000 payment was arrived at
following negotiations mediated by a U.S. magistrate judge in Los Angeles. They
said the FBI agreed to issue a letter of regret but that the language was still
being worked out.

Assistant U.S. Atty. Richard Patrick, who represented
the FBI in the talks, did not return phone calls seeking comment.

In a
deposition in September, former Assistant U.S. Atty. Beverly Reid O'Connell, now
a Los Angeles County Superior Court judge, recalled receiving an urgent phone
call during the early hours of Sept. 12, 2003, three weeks after the attacks,
from FBI senior supervisor Edward Ochotorena, seeking a green light to arrest
Connole.

Connole, who was under 24-hour surveillance at the time, had
just driven to the Pomona police headquarters to report that he was being
followed by strange men in unmarked cars.

"We have a situation going on
out here. We have officer safety issues. I'm going to arrest him," O'Connell
quoted Ochotorena as telling her.

"You don't have probable cause to
arrest him. I'm not giving you our authority and you better document it,"
O'Connell said she told the agent.

O'Connell said their conversation was
heated. "I was yelling at him," she said.

Notwithstanding her warning,
Ochotorena directed a team of FBI agents to arrest Connole immediately. Connole
was taken to an FBI office in West Covina for questioning and booked into the
West Covina Police Department jail on suspicion of arson.

West Covina
police, who participated in Connole's arrest, have apologized, saying they
regretted the notoriety he had received. The city gave Connole $20,000 to settle
a damage claim.

During a deposition taken in July, Ochotorena said he
felt no need to apologize and refused to concede that Connole was innocent,
despite the fact that he is no longer a suspect in the case.

"I don't
have any evidence that places him at the scene, but by the same token, I don't
have any evidence that says with 100% certainty, as you put it, that he was not
involved in the crime," Ochotorena said.

Ochotorena went on to suggest
there was a "remote possibility" that Connole might have been involved in the
"planning or execution or otherwise on the periphery of the crime."

The
FBI official noted that a law enforcement bloodhound had led his handler to
Connole's doorstep after being exposed to a scent from a cigarette lighter that
was recovered from the scene of one arson attack. Ochotorena said the dog's
"hit" still troubles him.

Burton and Paparian contended the dog-sniffing
evidence was nothing more than a "Rin Tin Tin fantasy." In the lawsuit, they
said there is no scientific basis for taking a weeks-old scent from an object
like a cigarette lighter, have a dog distinguish it from other human scents and
follow it to the owner.

"The literature is replete with instances of a
dog appearing to follow a scent when it is, in fact, taking cues from its
handler," they argued.

Connole came to the FBI's attention after
television stations broadcast footage of a roaring blaze at a Hummer dealership
in West Covina the night of Aug. 22, 2003. The next day, a woman telephoned the
FBI to report her suspicions about a small group of environmentalists who lived
as a collective across from her home in Pomona. She said she had seen cars with
out-of-state license plates parked on the street on the night of the
arsons.

Connole, who grew up in Orange County, lived at the address as
part of a cooperative called Regen V, which stood for regeneration of energy. He
drove an electric-powered car, installed solar panels and was active in the
antiwar movement.

FBI Agent Stanley Snock, assigned to head the
investigation, said during his deposition that he ordered a stakeout of three
houses occupied by the co-op's members. He said their names were turned over to
an FBI investigative analyst who keeps tabs on domestic terror
groups.

The analyst, a civilian FBI employee, provided information that
"led me to believe Mr. Connole probably had beliefs that would be conducive to
someone who might perpetrate an ELF [Earth Liberation Front] action," Snock
said.

Asked to explain, Snock said that besides belonging to a collective
that was "very pro-environment," Connole was affiliated with Food Not Bombs, a
movement that espouses diverting money from the military to feed the world's
hungry.

The agent acknowledged, however, that he knew of no link between
Food Not Bombs and domestic terrorism.</Table>

[PARAGON]

<Table>
<H1>FBI Settles With Environmentalist</H1>
<H2>Josh Connole was mistakenly jailed in connection with SUV arsons. He will
receive $100,000.</H2>By David Rosenzweig
Times Staff Writer

November
15, 2005

The FBI has agreed to pay $100,000 and issue a letter of regret
to an environmental activist who was mistakenly jailed as a suspect in a string
of arsons and vandalism at four SUV dealerships in the San Gabriel Valley in
2003, his lawyers said Monday.

Josh Connole, who spent four days behind
bars before being freed, sued the FBI, contending his civil rights had been
violated and his reputation destroyed.

The attacks, carried out in the
name of the radical Earth Liberation Front, destroyed or damaged more than 125
SUVs. A Caltech graduate student, William Cottrell, was later convicted and
sentenced to prison in the case.

Had Connole's suit gone to trial, the
FBI would have been up against testimony from a former federal prosecutor who
said she warned an FBI supervisor that his agents had no probable cause to
arrest Connole.

The 27-year-old Connole, who now lives in Oregon, said
Monday he was pleased with the settlement and hoped it would send a message to
the law enforcement community that "you can't throw people's civil rights out
the window in the name of fighting terrorism."

Connole's attorneys,
William Paparian and John Burton, said the $100,000 payment was arrived at
following negotiations mediated by a U.S. magistrate judge in Los Angeles. They
said the FBI agreed to issue a letter of regret but that the language was still
being worked out.

Assistant U.S. Atty. Richard Patrick, who represented
the FBI in the talks, did not return phone calls seeking comment.

In a
deposition in September, former Assistant U.S. Atty. Beverly Reid O'Connell, now
a Los Angeles County Superior Court judge, recalled receiving an urgent phone
call during the early hours of Sept. 12, 2003, three weeks after the attacks,
from FBI senior supervisor Edward Ochotorena, seeking a green light to arrest
Connole.

Connole, who was under 24-hour surveillance at the time, had
just driven to the Pomona police headquarters to report that he was being
followed by strange men in unmarked cars.

"We have a situation going on
out here. We have officer safety issues. I'm going to arrest him," O'Connell
quoted Ochotorena as telling her.

"You don't have probable cause to
arrest him. I'm not giving you our authority and you better document it,"
O'Connell said she told the agent.

O'Connell said their conversation was
heated. "I was yelling at him," she said.

Notwithstanding her warning,
Ochotorena directed a team of FBI agents to arrest Connole immediately. Connole
was taken to an FBI office in West Covina for questioning and booked into the
West Covina Police Department jail on suspicion of arson.

West Covina
police, who participated in Connole's arrest, have apologized, saying they
regretted the notoriety he had received. The city gave Connole $20,000 to settle
a damage claim.

During a deposition taken in July, Ochotorena said he
felt no need to apologize and refused to concede that Connole was innocent,
despite the fact that he is no longer a suspect in the case.

"I don't
have any evidence that places him at the scene, but by the same token, I don't
have any evidence that says with 100% certainty, as you put it, that he was not
involved in the crime," Ochotorena said.

Ochotorena went on to suggest
there was a "remote possibility" that Connole might have been involved in the
"planning or execution or otherwise on the periphery of the crime."

The
FBI official noted that a law enforcement bloodhound had led his handler to
Connole's doorstep after being exposed to a scent from a cigarette lighter that
was recovered from the scene of one arson attack. Ochotorena said the dog's
"hit" still troubles him.

Burton and Paparian contended the dog-sniffing
evidence was nothing more than a "Rin Tin Tin fantasy." In the lawsuit, they
said there is no scientific basis for taking a weeks-old scent from an object
like a cigarette lighter, have a dog distinguish it from other human scents and
follow it to the owner.

"The literature is replete with instances of a
dog appearing to follow a scent when it is, in fact, taking cues from its
handler," they argued.

Connole came to the FBI's attention after
television stations broadcast footage of a roaring blaze at a Hummer dealership
in West Covina the night of Aug. 22, 2003. The next day, a woman telephoned the
FBI to report her suspicions about a small group of environmentalists who lived
as a collective across from her home in Pomona. She said she had seen cars with
out-of-state license plates parked on the street on the night of the
arsons.

Connole, who grew up in Orange County, lived at the address as
part of a cooperative called Regen V, which stood for regeneration of energy. He
drove an electric-powered car, installed solar panels and was active in the
antiwar movement.

FBI Agent Stanley Snock, assigned to head the
investigation, said during his deposition that he ordered a stakeout of three
houses occupied by the co-op's members. He said their names were turned over to
an FBI investigative analyst who keeps tabs on domestic terror
groups.

The analyst, a civilian FBI employee, provided information that
"led me to believe Mr. Connole probably had beliefs that would be conducive to
someone who might perpetrate an ELF [Earth Liberation Front] action," Snock
said.

Asked to explain, Snock said that besides belonging to a collective
that was "very pro-environment," Connole was affiliated with Food Not Bombs, a
movement that espouses diverting money from the military to feed the world's
hungry.

The agent acknowledged, however, that he knew of no link between
Food Not Bombs and domestic terrorism.</Table>

[PARAGON]

<Table>


<FONT class=artname>Profiling: How the FBI Tracks Eco-Terror
Suspects</FONT>
Author: Michael Isikoff, Newsweek
Published on November
14, 2005, 08:06




The FBI collected detailed data on political activities and Web postings of
suspected members of a tiny environmentalist commune in southern California two
years ago as part of a high-profile counterterrorism probe, bureau records show.
Facing further new disclosures about the matter, the bureau last week agreed to
settle a lawsuit and to pay $100,000 to Josh Connole, a 27-year-old ex-commune
member who had been arrested-and later released-on suspicions he was one of the
eco-terrorists who had firebombed SUV dealerships in the summer of 2003. But the
bureau's rare concession of error, expected to be publicly announced soon, could
bring new attention to what civil-liberties groups say is a disturbing trend:
the stepped-up monitoring of domestic political activity by FBI counter-terror
agents.

Connole, an anti-Iraq-war protester, had been living in a Pomona,
Calif., vegan commune when a Joint Terrorism Task Force (JTTF) targeted him
after arson attacks on four nearby Hummer dealers-acts blamed on the shadowy
Earth Liberation Front (ELF), which the bureau considers a domestic terror
group. The case was considered serious enough that Director Robert Mueller
briefed President Bush. After concluding Connole looked like a lanky, goateed
suspect caught on surveillance tape, agents arrested him at gunpoint on Sept.
12, 2003, then raided the commune. After being interrogated and held for four
days, he was released. Another suspect with no connection to the commune was
later arrested and convicted.

In their wrongful-arrest lawsuit, Connole's
lawyers demanded to know why the FBI looked at Connole in the first place. Court
documents show agents were initially tipped off by a neighbor to "suspicious"
activity at the commune the night of the attacks. (In fact, says Connole,
members were simply helping one of the residents move out.) Agents placed the
commune under surveillance and developed a political profile of the residents,
discovering the owner of the house and his father "have posted statements on
websites opposing the use of fossil fuels," one doc reads. Another says the
owner had ties to a local chapter of Food Not Bombs, an "anarcho-vegan food
distribution group." Among activities flagged in bureau docs: the father of the
owner had conducted a "one man' daily protest" outside a Toyota office, was
interviewed for an article called "Dude, Where's my Electric Car!?" and posted
info on a Web site announcing "Stop Norway Whaling!" Critics say such info has
been increasingly collected by agents since the then Attorney General John
Ashcroft relaxed FBI guidelines in 2002. "How does advocacy of electric cars
become the basis for suspicion?" asks Bill Paparian, Connole's lawyer. Bureau
officials say they collect such info only when there might be ties to violence
or terrorism. A spokesman declined to comment on Connole's case, saying that
because no settlement has been entered into the court record, it remains "a
pending legal matter." </P></Table>

[GeorgeSSSS]

These news reports are generally written by leftists who have never prosecuted a criminal case (I have) and who use 20-20 hindsight to make it all seem obvious and the government look like a bunch of bad guys. $100,000 is peanuts and Connole is a chump.

Best regards,

George

[ROX]

Another one of Ted Kaczynski's pupils.

He's in the State of Oregon now? Another terrorist, perfect!

[KenP]

That is all.

[Fubar]

tax dollars hard at work. I say shoot em all there's less paper work.

[Goalkeeper]

FBI =

Fumbling Bunch of Idiots

Fu**ing Bunch of Imbeciles

1st they blow the surveillance and then they disregard the AUSA (Assistant United States Attorney).

In Federal Law Enforcement, the FBI either screws the case up or waits for another Federal Agency (or State/Local police) to make the case. At that point, the FBI has a press conference.

As with any organization, there is definitely good people there, but they sure do have their slugs!

-A Slug from another Agency

PS - This should've been and ATF case...

[Kellen]

See! Without the media, innocent men like this would continue to be hassled and jailed without reasonable doubt. God bless the USA and the media.