Arizona Earth First!

Several mainstream media articles about the Sabino Canyon Trial are posted below, from oldest to most recent.

Reporter’s tapes place activists in Sabino

By Tom Beal
ARIZONA DAILY STAR
Tucson, Arizona | Published: 12.10.2005

A reporter’s notes were used in U.S. District Court Friday to place Earth First activists Rodney Coronado and Matthew Crozier in Sabino Canyon and detail their movements during a 2004 mountain-lion hunt they are accused of disrupting.

The notes were in the form of cassette tapes that Esquire magazine writer-at-large John Richardson dictated to himself.

Coronado, 39, and Crozier, 33, are charged with a felony count of conspiracy to impede or injure an officer of the United States and misdemeanor counts of interfering with a U.S. Forest Service officer and depredation of government property.

Richardson, the third defendant in the case, will be tried later, but his recordings, seized when Forest Service and FBI agents took him into custody in a closed Sabino Canyon on March 24, 2004, were played Friday to the jury that will decide Crozier’s and Coronado’s fates.

Defense lawyers had argued that the tapes were Richardson’s notes and should be excluded from evidence because Richardson was not available in court to verify or explain them. But Judge David C. Bury agreed with the contention of federal prosecutors that the tapes should be considered “the utterances of a co-conspirator.”

On Thursday, when the lawyers argued over which pieces of the tape should be excluded, prosecutor Wallace Kleindienst said that early portions of the tape, where Richardson visited a rally against the lion capture and a press conference outlining the need for it, should be played because they showed “a criminal conspiracy to stir up public sentiment” against the hunt.

Crozier’s attorney, Sean Bruner, disagreed. “To say that trying to bring public attention to something is a criminal conspiracy, that is stepping on the First Amendment.”

Richardson’s attorney, David Shapiro of Oakland, Calif., was out of the country Friday, but his previous lawyer, A. Bates Butler III of Tucson, said he was surprised that the tapes were allowed into evidence.

Butler said he had not been able to hear the tapes when he was Richardson’s lawyer, but he talked extensively to Richardson about them. “He wasn’t saying, ‘Should we do this or that?’ He was taking notes to write a story,” Butler said.

“The fact that they’re prosecuting him at all should be a concern to those who believe in the First Amendment,” he said.

The tapes narrate the surreptitious entry of the trio into the closed canyon. Richardson narrates Coronado’s surveillance of Forest Service rangers and trackers who were setting snares to trap problem mountain lions after an earlier Arizona Game and Fish mountain-lion hunt had been called off.

Coronado, and a man identified on the tape as Matt, also talk about looking for the snares so they might pull them up. At one point, Matt laments that he hadn’t brought a lock or he would sneak down the hill and lock himself to the controls of a helicopter brought in to transport any lions caught.

In the tapes, Richardson muses to himself about what he would do if he found a snare. “I’d probably be eager to point it out so that I could get the approbation of the group and just so it wouldn’t feel so (expletive) pointless.”

In testimony Friday, FBI agent Doak Mahlik said the tapes also led him to arrest Crozier, who was not apprehended in the canyon that day.

If convicted of the felony count, Crozier and Coronado face up to six years in prison.

● Contact reporter Tom Beal at 573-4158 or tbeal@azstarnet.com.

Animal rights duo guilty in Sabino case

Activists interfered with 2004 hunt after mountain lion problem

By Tom Beal
ARIZONA DAILY STAR

Tucson, Arizona | Published: 12.14.2005

Two animal activists affiliated with Earth First were convicted Tuesday on one felony and two misdemeanor counts related to their March 2004 disruption of a mountain lion hunt in Sabino Canyon.

Rodney Coronado, 39, of Tucson, and Matthew Crozier, 33, of Sedona, could be imprisoned for more than six years if maximum sentences are imposed.

Coronado is a convicted arsonist and well-known spokesman for forceful action on behalf of animal rights and environmental causes.

Crozier joined Coronado in spreading false scents and pulling up a sensor and trap during a hunt for problem lions in the then-closed canyon.

After the verdict, Assistant U.S. Attorney Wallace Klein- dienst said Coronado is “a danger to the community.”

“I know he wasn’t tried here for being a violent anarchist. This trial wasn’t about Rod Coronado being a terrorist, but he is one,” Kleindienst said.

Assistant U.S. Attorney Beverly Anderson asked U.S. District Court Judge David C. Bury to order Coronado jailed pending his March 8 sentencing, citing his flight after being indicted in the arson.

Bury said he had to rely on the only report before him, which described Coronado as “a model released defendant” following his indictment in this case. He allowed him to remain free.

In addition to his imprisonment for setting fire to a mink researcher’s offices at Michigan State University in 1992, Coronado has claimed responsibility for sinking two whaling boats and damaging a processing plant in Iceland in 1986. He recently appeared on “60 Minutes” defending those who use tools such as arson to fight urban sprawl and animal abuse.

After the verdict, Coronado said he is still most saddened that one lion was “imprisoned” and four others killed in the period following his arrest.

“From the get-go, this was always about doing right by the mountain lions,” he said.

Coronado was arrested in Sabino Canyon on March 24, 2004, along with Esquire magazine writer-at-large John Rich-ardson, whose confiscated tape recordings of the group’s movement provided the basis for the case against Crozier and Coronado.

Richardson, who was not tried with the other two, faces one misdemeanor count of interfering with a forest officer.

Crozier and Coronado were convicted of that misdemeanor, another of depredation of government property, and a felony count of conspiracy to impede or injure an officer of the United States.

Sabino Canyon was closed to public use on March 9, 2004, after wildlife biologists warned that an increasing number of human/mountain lion encounters had made the popular hiking area, visited by 1.3 million a year, dangerous.

The closure order, signed by a deputy Coronado National Forest administrator, was later found to be invalid and charges of trespassing against the three men were dropped.

The Arizona Game and Fish Department, which has authority over wildlife in Arizona, at first planned to hunt and shoot the three or four “problem lions” believed to be in the area.

After a public outcry, and under pressure from Gov. Janet Napolitano, Game and Fish decided to trap the lions and send them to an animal shelter.

Crozier, Coronado and Richardson entered the canyon in the early morning of March 24, 2004.

Their intent, voiced in Richardson’s tapes and in media appearances by Coronado played for the jury, was to disrupt the hunters — to use mountain lion urine to create a false trail for the tracking dogs and to locate and pull up snares set by the trapper.

At one point in the tape, Richardson reports that Coronado says the governor is wavering and might call off the hunt completely if the group can buy the lions some time.

After the three were spotted in the canyon by authorities, they fled, but Coronado and Richardson were caught by agents who located them by using a helicopter that was standing by to transport trapped lions.

The helicopter pilot and a U.S. Forest Service agent with him both testified that they saw the men “digging” at a trap, though they gave different accounts of how many of the men were involved.

Though both defense and prosecuting attorneys said the trial was about the crimes and not about lions or First Amendment freedoms, much of the argument was waged on those points.

Coronado’s attorney, Antonio Felix, said after the verdict that the jury may have been influenced by “evidence that didn’t need to be there” concerning the danger posed by mountain lions.

Felix also said it was unfair to use Richardson’s tape recordings because the defense had no chance to examine him because he is a defendant in an upcoming proceeding.

The tape recordings were crucial to the prosecution. Prosecutor Kleindienst, in his closing argument, told the jury that “there is a smoking gun in this case and it’s John Richardson’s tapes.”

Gerry Perry, regional supervisor for Arizona Game and Fish, said it “looks like justice was served. We tried to do the right thing for the lions, also to do what’s right for people. If we make the wrong decision and somebody gets hurt, we have to live with those decisions and I don’t ever want to go through that again.”

Ben Pachano, an organizer with Chuk:shon Earth First, said, “I don’t think Rod and Matt were guilty of what they were charged with. That said, we never denied that Earth First wanted to sabotage that mountain lion hunt. We certainly don’t regret any of that.”

Contact reporter Tom Beal at 573-4158 or tbeal@azstarnet.com.

2 Earth First! activists guilty of interfering with Sabino lion hunt

Wednesday, December 14, 2005

A.J. FLICK
Tucson Citizen

An eco-activist group that spearheaded protests against Sabino Canyon mountain lion hunts last year isn’t fazed by the convictions of two of its members.

A couple of dozen Earth First! supporters sat quietly yesterday as a U.S. District Court jury convicted Rodney Adam Coronado, 39, of Tucson and Matthew Crozier, 33, of Prescott of one felony and two misdemeanors.

“We’re obviously disappointed, but we stand by our position that the mountain lion hunt was wrong and making our position public and taking action was the right thing to do,” Earth First! organizer Ben Pachano said.

“We will continue to do what we’ve been doing, which is campaign against the Arizona Game & Fish’s wildlife policy, which is more concerned with sports hunters rather than the wildlife.”

Coronado and Crozier were convicted of conspiring to impede or injure a U.S. Forest Service officer, a felony; and interfering with a Forest Service officer and damaging government property, both misdemeanors.

Judge David C. Bury will sentence the two March 8.

Federal sentencing guidelines, which judges are not bound by, are up to six years for the felony count, six months for the interference misdemeanor and one year for the property damage misdemeanor, Assistant U.S. Attorney Wallace Kleindienst said Monday.

Author and journalist John H. Richardson, who was accompanying Coronado and Crozier for a planned magazine article, was charged with interfering with an officer and is set to be tried Jan. 11.

Prosecutors stressed throughout the trial that Coronado and Crozier were more concerned with making political statements than protecting the lions.

“They obviously violated the law to perpetuate their own political beliefs,” Assistant U.S. Attorney Beverly K. Anderson said yesterday.

In closing arguments Monday, Kleindienst called Richardson’s audio notes the “smoking gun” because they show discussions focused on sabotage rather than saving lions.

“That’s smokin’!” Kleindienst said. “That’s better than ‘CSI,’ if you ask me.”

Defense attorneys said the men posed no threat to anyone, no property was damaged and the case arose because the government didn’t like what the men stood for as they exercised their free-speech rights.

“The politics were not about the mountain lions,” Coronado’s attorney, Antonio Felix, said in closing arguments. “The politics were about how much the First Amendment can be twisted into criminal intent.”

Jurors refused comment after the verdicts.

Felix said he’s confident the convictions will be overturned.

“There are significant legal issues that the Court of Appeals will have to review,” Felix said.

Coronado, Crozier and Richardson also were originally charged with theft and criminal damage counts in Pima County Consolidated Justice Court.

Coronado’s county charges were thrown out last month, but Felix expects them to be refiled.

Crozier is set for a change of plea hearing on county charges Jan. 13.

Richardson’s county trial has been delayed by legal issues.

The Sabino Canyon recreation area was closed to the public in March 2004 when mountain lions in the area began showing unusually bold behavior.

State wildlife managers announced plans to kill the mountain lions, saying they were dangerous because they had lost their natural fear of humans. Earth First! organized protests, which led officials on March 23, 2004, to say the lions would be relocated, not killed.

One day later, Coronado and Richardson were seen digging up a snare as Crozier stood nearby, according to testimony.

Pachano of Earth First! said the lions should have been left alone because people who go to wildlife areas know how to safely deal with animals.