April 12, 2002

MADISON -- Three anti-nuclear weapons activists were sentenced for federal misdemeanor trespass Friday, April 12 in Federal District Court in Madison, beginning at 12:00 noon before Magistrate Stephen Crocker.

Magistrate Stephen Crocker sentenced John Heid, 46, of Luck, Wisc., to a $500.00 fine, although Heid had made it clear he would not pay a fine. Mag. Crocker set August 22 for resentencing if the fine remains unpaid. Roberta Thurston, 49, and Don Timmerman, 51, both of Park Falls, Wisc., were sentenced to 1 year of probation, a $100.00 fine and 50 hours of community service.

The three had faced up to six months in prison and/or $5,000.00 for the petty misdemeanor conviction, although the prosecutor had promised not to recommend jail.

The three were ticketed during an October 7 protest at the Navy’s submarine transmitter system known as Project ELF, just as the government began bombing Afghanistan. The extremely low frequency transmitter sends one-way messages to submerged Trident and fast-attack submarines around the world.

Heid, Timmerman and Thurston are the first protesters to be charged in Federal Court for trespass at the Wisconsin site. (Another ELF system operates in Michigan. And protesters who shut the system down using handsaws have been charged federally.) More than 584 Ashland County trespass citations have been issued to Trident/ELF opponents at the Wisconsin site since 1991, all of which were handled by County Circuit Court in Ashland, Wisc.

On Oct. 7, word of the U.S.-led bombing of Afghanistan came to the protesters just as Forest Service officers were issuing the federal citations. The Duluth News Tribune had reported just days before (Oct. 4, 2001), that, "If American submarines patrolling waters of the Middle East get ordered to action, it’s likely that message, or at least part of it, will come by way of Clam Lake in northern Wisconsin."

IN A RELATED EVENT:

The "Mobile Peace Center," a colorfully converted school bus operated by a coalition of anti-war groups, traveled from the sentencing hearing in Madison to Oak Ridge, Tenn. -- where the government operates its "Y-12" nuclear weapons facility -- for a nation-wide protest against the Bush Administration’s proposed development of new "earth-penetrating" nuclear weapons. The Y-12 protest took place on Sunday, April 20 and was organized by the Oak Ridge Environmental Peace Alliance, (865) 483-8202. At least fifteen Wisc. residents made the trip.