|
BINGHAMTON---"It's the U.S. government that is guilty of much larger crimes", a war protester told a federal judge last week during his sentencing for smearing his blood on windows, walls, pictures and an American flag at the Army and Marine Corps recruiting station outside of Ithaca during an anti-war protest on March 17, 2003 when the war with Iraq was imminent.
Daniel Burns, 45, the first of the protestors arrested and dubbed the St. Patrick's Four, was sentenced last week to six months in federal prison. He said the federal government was being hypocritical for prosecuting him while engaging in an illegal war in Iraq and conducting illegal wiretapping of American citizens. The four protesters are members of Catholic Workers, a social justice organization.
Burns was fined $250 for contempt and ordered to share with his co-defendants payment of $958 in restitution for the cleanup at the recruiting station.
In pronouncing sentence, U.S. District Court judge Thomas McAvoy said he wasn't penalizing Burns for protesting the war but the manner in how he protested it. "The court doesn't question your motivation", McVoy said. "I know you didn't go there with evil purpose in mind. You went in good conscience but what you clearly violated the law".
The other three protestors, Peter DeMott, 59 and sisters, Teresa Grad, 40 and Clare Grady, 47, will be sentenced last this month.
After a county court jury deadlocked over convicting them of trespassing and criminal mischief, they were then prosecuted at the federal level and convicted. They were acquitted of conspiracy to impede an officer of the United States which carried a maximum sentence of up to six years in federal prison. Three of the defendants for cited for contempt after refusing to say who had drawn the blood used and for arguing international law after he told them it could not be used as a defense. 1-24-06
© 2005 North
Country Gazette
|
