2 plead guilty to arson at Colorado ski resort

EUGENE, Ore. — Two people who have already admitted to helping set fire to a Vail, Colo., ski resort in 1998 as part of an Earth Liberation Front campaign formally pleaded guilty Thursday to the federal arson charges.

Chelsea Dawn Gerlach and Stanislas Gregory Meyerhoff, both 29, had already pleaded guilty to some of the arsons totaling $20 million in damage committed between 1996 and 2001 by a Eugene-based cell of the Earth Liberation Front known as the Family. Under plea deals with federal prosecutors, they agreed to have the Vail charges transferred from Colorado to Oregon to be settled along with their other cases.

The hearing at U.S. District Court lasted about 10 minutes.

The Vail fire did $12 million in damage and focused national attention on radical environmentalists who ascribed their attacks to the secretive Earth Liberation Front and Animal Liberation Front.

Two others indicted in the Vail arson, Josephine Sunshine Overaker and Rebecca J. Rubin, remain at large.

The Vail fire was one of 20 set in Oregon, Washington, California, Wyoming and Colorado blamed by federal investigators on the Family. Twelve people — 10 in Oregon and two in Washington — have pleaded guilty in the case known as Operation Backfire. Others remain at large.

At a separate hearing Thursday, U.S. District Judge Ann Aiken scheduled sentencing for Meyerhoff for April 10 and Gerlach for April 18. The other eight who have pleaded guilty in the case will be sentenced during the last two weeks of April.

The first arrests in Operation Backfire came about a year ago.