Valve Turners Brought to Justice

BISMARCK, N.D. — An environmental activist from Seattle has been sentenced to one year in prison for targeting an oil pipeline in North Dakota.

From the Crime Archives, Bismark ND KVRR Local News Men Sentenced for Shutting Down Keystone Pipeline The objective facts are provided by Alison Voorhees February 6, 2018

Michael Foster in October 2016 cut through a chain link fence near Walhalla and turned a shut-off valve on the Keystone Pipeline.

He was convicted last October of conspiracy, criminal mischief and trespass but acquitted of reckless endangerment.

Samuel Jessup of Vermont, who filmed Foster’s protest, was sentenced to two years of probation for conspiracy.

A more sympathetic report from Seattle Met Seattle Activist Who Shut Off Keystone Pipeline Sentenced to One Year in Prison Excerpts below with my bolds.

Foster, along with activists in three other states, in a coordinated effort turned the valves off the tar sands crude pipelines entering the U.S. from Canada. Foster stopped the flow of oil for seven hours, allegedly costing TransCanada $50,000. The pipeline transports an estimated 590,000 barrels of oil a day from Canada to refineries in Texas’s Gulf Coast.

Foster was convicted in October of misdemeanor trespass, felony criminal mischief, and conspiracy to commit criminal mischief. (He was acquitted of the reckless endangerment charge.) The crimes carried a potential maximum penalty of 21 years in prison. TransCanada and the state of North Dakota recommended five in the hopes a harsh sentence would discourage future climate activists.

“It’s gonna suck being a little old vegan in prison,” Foster told Seattle Met months earlier. “But honestly? Living in this system of overconsumption, beside this concrete river of CO2 that is always flowing on I-5—everywhere I go in this town that I love feels like prison. So the idea of living in prison? It doesn’t bother me the way it should.”

The Pembina County Court judge in Cavalier, North Dakota, sentenced Foster to one year in prison and two years deferred. He begins his sentence Tuesday. Sam Jessup of Vermont, who livestreamed Foster turning the North Dakota valve, was sentenced to supervised probation for conspiracy.

Elsewhere we have: “Michael Foster isn’t a criminal; he’s a hero.” —Dr. James Hansen, climate expert.

Summary

You do the crime, you do the time. These are crimes and jail time is what the law requires. Journalists downplay that the sentence is three years, with two of them deferred. As posted previously, Iowa state senators are considering a law to increase penalties on such crimes considerably.

See Upping the Stakes for Ecoterrorists