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News :: Miscellaneous |
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Bloomington, Indiana: Tree Spiking Charges dropped for Frank Ambrose |
Current rating: 0 |
by chuck
(No verified email address) |
26 Sep 2001
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Charges of tree spiking against environmental activist Frank Ambrose were dropped last week after the prosecutor realized they had no proof. |
Forwarded on behalf of the Bloomington Defense Committee:
For those of you who have not heard, the state dropped the charges against Frank a week and a half ago. After having drug the case out for 8 months, the prosecutor offered Frank a deal at his pretrial conference--plead guility to a low misdemeanor and get a year probation and some community service. He told them no.
At the hearing, it became really apparent what the state was up to when the public defender started to chide the prosecutor about needing to get home to oversee the clearcutting of her property and doing a bunch of anti-environmental things, when she interrupted to say that "you don’t know how much it pains me to have to prosecute this case" for the whole court to hear, judge and all. We knew then that they did not have anything and were just wasting time. Two days later, they dismissed the charges.
We would like to apologize for not getting this out sooner, or other alerts out, but things have been fairly hectic this summer and there really was nothing at all happening with the case except that hearings kept getting continued. The state never produced some of the evidence they swore they had in the arrest affidavit, i.e. the residue on the gloves that matched the stuff on the nails in the trees. The hammers they took from Frank and his wife were proven to have not been used to pound the nails into the tree (they were too small and marks did not match), even though the media continues to say the state got this evidence.
Now the only thing left to do is get Frank and Marie's personal items back that were stolen in the raid of their house in Bloomington. Marie would like her family photo albums and address books back, and Frank would like his tools back.
Once again, thanks for sticking tight with all of us through this tough time. It is gratifying to show them that we were right in saying that this was a frame-up and an attempt to silence the activist community. We showed them that their attempt failed with the week of resistance in April and the two tree sits in southern Indiana's woodlands (one of which is still on going).
The times are only going to get tougher with the recent events. It is important that we keep on with our work and do what we know is write, even if it is not popular. We cannot cooperate with the state in anyway during their likely more frequent investigations and inquiries into our communities. To do so will only break us apart. It is what nearly broke Bloomington's community apart last year. For the Earth's sake, it is important that we stick together and continue and intensify our fight.
Also, during the week of resistance, a number of people were arrested in a critical mass bike ride. A few of them have had their charges dropped, and others are set for trial in the coming week. Please wish them luck. We will send an update about them when the results are in.
You can call the prosecutors office in the mean time and tell them to drop the charges against all the critical mass riders. The number is 812-349-2670.
BDC |
See also:
http://www.indymedia.org/front.php3?article_id=67513&group=webcast
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