Feds say they won't retry Waters in university ecoterror fire

Federal prosecutors have agreed not to retry convicted University of Washington arsonist Briana Waters on a charge that could have sent her to prison for an automatic 30 years.

Waters was convicted this month on two counts of arson stemming from an ecoterror fire that destroyed the University of Washington's Center for Urban Horticulture in 2001. But the jury deadlocked on three other counts, including the big one, using a destructive device during a crime of violence. That carried a mandatory minimum of 30 years in prison.

In an agreement signed Thursday, the U.S. attorney's office in Seattle said it won't hold a new trial on the deadlocked counts, and moved to dismiss those charges.

In exchange, Waters agreed that if a federal appeals court overturns her conviction, the government can refile the charges _ even if the statute of limitations has run.

Waters, a 32-year-old violin teacher from Oakland, Calif., faces five to 20 years when she's sentenced May 30. Prosecutors said she acted as a lookout for other Earth Liberation Front activists who set the fire, and obtained a rental car used in the crime.

"The jury held Ms. Waters accountable for the criminal conduct at the heart of this case: the arson of the Center for Urban Horticulture," U.S. Attorney Jeffrey C. Sullivan said in a news release. "After careful consideration, we feel the interests of justice are served by moving forward with Ms. Waters' sentencing on those counts of conviction."

One of her attorneys, Neil Fox, said he had no comment on the agreement.

The university fire was one of at least 17 fires set around the West from 1996 to 2001 by an Olympia, Wash., and Eugene, Ore., cell of the Earth Liberation Front and the Animal Liberation Front. The plant research center was targeted because the activists mistakenly believed scientists there were genetically engineering poplar trees. The center was rebuilt at a cost of $7 million.

A professor whose research was destroyed, Sarah Reichard, testified during the trial that the arson had devastated her, turning her from someone who backpacked alone in South America to someone who cowered in her home when a Greenpeace volunteer came to the door.

Two women who pleaded guilty testified against Waters, and rental car records suggested she obtained a vehicle used in the crime. Her lawyer, Robert Bloom, insisted during closing arguments that the women, Lacey Phillabaum and Jennifer Kolar, lied on the witness stand in an attempt to frame her and win lighter sentences.

The other two alleged participants in the UW fire were William Rodgers, who committed suicide soon after his arrest, and Justin Solondz, Waters' boyfriend at the time, who remains at large. Prosecutors said Solondz constructed the incendiary devices used in the fire in a clean room behind Waters' home in Olympia.