Federal grand jury convened in Davenport
Woman says she is target of animal-rights vandalism
investigation
26-10-2009 Ann McGlynn and Diane Heldt, Quad-City Times, USA
A federal grand jury in Davenport is investigating a nationally publicized, animal-rights-related break-in at a University of Iowa lab in 2004, according to a 20-year-old woman from Minneapolis who says she is a possible target of the inquiry.
Authorities converge on Seashore Hall and Spence Laboratories on the campus of the University of Iowa, after extensive vandalism, including the dumping of chemicals and the release of lab animals, was discovered Sunday, Nov. 14, 2004, in Iowa City, Iowa. Most of the damage was in Spence Labs and in the east wing of Seashore Hall, both of which are home to the psychology department. Because of the extent of damage and the dumping of chemicals, the building and lab were evacuated. (AP Photo/The Gazette, Brian Ray)
Carrie Feldman refused to testify when she was subpoenaed to testify at the federal courthouse on Oct. 15, she said. She will refuse again at a second ordered appearance on Nov. 17, she said. Ultimately, she could be held in contempt of court and taken into custody.
Feldman denies involvement in the crime. A spokesman for the U.S. Attorney for the Southern District of Iowa would not confirm or deny any information about grand jury proceedings.
Feldman was 15 and a sophomore in high school in Minneapolis at the time of the break-in, she said. Feldman's trip to Iowa this month was the first time she had been in the state since she was a small child, when her family barely crossed over the border so they could say the visited Iowa, she said.
"The assertion by the prosecutor that I may be a target of this investigation is ridiculous," she said. "I believe that I am being targeted because of my political activity and beliefs, not my involvement in any crime."
Officials also requested her attendance records from her high school from the time of the break-in, she said.
Grand jury proceedings - used to determine if there is enough evidence to indict a person in connection with a crime - are secret. They are not open to the public. On her blog, http://www.supportcarrie.wordpress.com/, however, Feldman posted a statement she read to the members of the grand jury. She invoked her Fifth Amendment right against self-incrimination.
"But beyond that, I am refusing to cooperate based on a sincere belief that to do so would run counter to my deeply held convictions and values," the statement says.
BRIAN RAY Workers from SET Environmental, Inc. wheel a large drum into the back door of Seashore Hall Thursday November 18, 2004 as the clean up continues of Seashore Hall and Spence Laboratories on the campus of the University of Iowa, after extensive vandalism, including the dumping of chemicals and the release of lab animals, was discovered Sunday, Nov. 14, 2004, in Iowa City.
Grand jury investigations, she said, do not afford witnesses basic rights, including having a lawyer present. "Just cooperating with that is allowing it to happen. I don't want to do that."
The FBI was called in to investigate the November 2004 vandalism and break-in at the University of Iowa's Spence Laboratories and Seashore Hall.
The Animal Liberation Front, an underground animal-rights activist group, claimed responsibility for the damage to lab equipment and the release of 88 mice and 313 rats used in psychology department experiments. The break-in was designated as domestic terrorism.
UI officials estimated the damage in the hundreds of thousands of dollars and offered a $10,000 reward for tips leading to identification of the vandals. The university also increased security at its labs following the break-in.
A 50-minute video released to the media by ALF after the break-in showed at least four masked people had access to electronic keys and took their time as they ransacked the laboratories.
David Skorton, then president of the university, condemned the destruction and the implied threat to researchers in an e-mail, which listed researcher names, home addresses and phone numbers. The e-mail was posted on a Web site that posts reports of ALF activity.
The environment for researchers at the university, Skorton said, was "permanently altered."
ALF, according to its Web site, is "a loosely-associated collection of cells of people who intentionally violate the law in order to free animals from captivity and the horrors of exploitation." The people in one cell do not know people in other cells to "prevent legal authorities from breaking up the organization."
They break into buildings to release animals, destroy property and use intimidation to "prevent further animal abuse and murder," the site says.
People associated with the group have "a very well-thought-out ideology" and they have attempted to make change with peaceful means, said Jerry Vlasak, a spokesman for the group. "When those things are proven ineffective, they are willing to break the law."
Vlasak compared the actions to people who worked to free slaves or those held by the Nazis.
The group lists people imprisoned for ALF-related acts on its site. They also list agents and former activists who work with law enforcement activities against ALF.
"They are secretive organizations," he said. People who testify are not allowed a lawyer and are threatened with imprisonment if they do not comply, he said. "They are basically fishing expeditions."
Feldman is not the only person fighting grand jury testimony on ALF-related activities. Jordan Halliday, who lives in Utah, failed to testify before a grand jury that ALF says is investigating animal rights activities in Utah. He was held on a civil contempt charge for three months.
Halliday was released in June after he was criminally indicted for refusing to obey an order of the court. His case is pending. One condition of his pre-trial release is that he have no association with ALF, the Earth Liberation Front or Vegan Straight Edge.
A rally is planned in advance of Feldman's appearance in Davenport court on Nov. 17. She is working with attorneys to get the subpoena quashed before then. Meanwhile, she expects to be offered a specific type of immunity that would not allow prosecutors to use her statements against her in future proceedings.
She will still refuse to testify, she said.
"It is common for above-ground activists to be the targets of repression and intimidation when the government is failing to find the people who have actually carried out these actions," she said.
(Diane Heldt is a reporter for The Gazette in Cedar Rapids, Iowa.)
(Bron: http://www.qctimes.com/)
(Bron foto's: Quad-City Times)
November 14th 2004:
ALF Communique:
The Animal Liberation Front is claiming responsibility for the liberation of 401 animals from the University of Iowa in the early hours of November 14th, 2004. All animals on the third floor of the UI psychology department -- 88 mice and 313 rats -- were removed, examined and treated by a sympathetic veterinarian, and placed in loving homes.
Additionally, two animal labs and three vivisector's offices were entered and all contents relating to animal research were destroyed.
These are:
4th Floor - Spence Labs: Vivisector Ed Wasserman's lab entered. Dozens of computers and devices used in experiments on live pigeons were destroyed.
Basement - Spence Labs: Lab of vivisector Mark Blumburg and others entered. Surgical equipment and small animal stereotaxic devices, as well as "shock boxes" and other instruments of torture destroyed.
4th Floor - Seashore Hall
Primate researcher Joshua Rodefer's office entered. Computer discs, hard drives, paperwork and photos showing Rodefer's work confining drug addicted primates in small glass boxes removed. The remaining paperwork detailing his monstrous work addicting primates and rats to narcotics was soaked in acid and the computer destroyed.
1st Floor - Seashore Hall
Primate researcher Amy Poremba's office entered. Computers destroyed, documents removed, and the remainder soaked in acid.
This raid was carried out to halt the barbaric research of the UI Psychology Department's 7 primary animal researchers: Professors Poremba, Freeman, Blumburg, Johnson, Robinson, Rodefer and Wasserman.
This was not thoughtless vandalism but a methodical effort to cripple the UI psychology department's animal research. Only equipment in rooms where animals were confined and tortured were targeted. Only computers belonging to or used in the work of vivisectors were destroyed. Only documents of animal researchers waere doused in acid. The acid a deliberately chosen paper dissolving agent.
Our goal is total abolition of all animal exploitation.
Achieved in the short term by delivering the 401 animals from UI's chamber of hell. And in the extended term by shutting down the labs through the erasing of research and equipment used in the barbaric practice of vivisection. The entire raid was a careful and deliberate 5-pronged assault on UI's animal research.
Behind the laboratory doors we found drug addicted rats, rats subjected to stress experiments involving loud noise, rats undergoing thirst experiments, unanesthetized rats with protruding surgical staples and oozing wounds, and mice and rats affixed with grotesque head implants.
Inside the labs of UI's Psych Department, we found a bloody torture chamber showcasing the cruelest whims of our earth's sickest minds.
Professors Freeman, Poremba, Rodefer, Johnson, Robinson, Blumburg, and Wasserman are monsters.
Tonight 401 animals are spared their reach. Our deepest sadness is reserved for the animals on the 4th Floor kept from our arms, those we were unable to save, including hundreds of mice and rats, pigeons, guinea pigs, and 8 primates. No animals were released into the wild. All 401 were placed in comfortable, loving homes.
We acted as operatives not only of compassion, but good science. Animal research is not only cruel but hazardous -- as data derived from the animal models is not applicable to humans and therefore dangerous.
Our bypassing of UI's sophisticated, key card-access, 4-walled security system (perimeter, elevator, corridor, animal room) should be interpreted as a two-fold message:
1) Our utter seriousness in achieving animal liberation.
2) If you torture animals and we not be stopped from liberating them.On the ears of these monsters who know only profit and blood, who hide behind unjust laws, our breath has been wasted.
Justice for the victims of vivisection will be achieved not by the blows of boycott nor protest -- but of our sledgehammers to laboratory doors.
Let this message be clear to all who victimize the innocent: We're watching. And by axe, drill, or crowbar -- we're coming through your door. Stop or be stopped.
A.L.F
http://www.animalliberationfront.com/...
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