Seattle man among 6 animal-rights activists convicted by federal jury

TRENTON, N.J. — A federal jury using an anti-terrorism law for the first time convicted six animal-rights activists Thursday for a campaign to drive a company out of business.

The jury in Trenton found the defendants, one of whom is from Seattle, and their organization guilty of violating the Animal Enterprise Protection Act, a law amended in 2002 to equate its offenses with terrorism.

The members of Stop Huntingdon Animal Cruelty (SHAC) also were found guilty of conspiracy and interstate stalking in their campaign against employees of Huntingdon Life Sciences, a British company that tests consumer products on animals and has operations in East Millstone, N.J.

Defense attorneys argued that the defendants were exercising their constitutional rights of free speech and had not themselves committed the acts advocated by their Web site. SHAC said it was the victim of a government crackdown on dissent.

Convicted were Kevin Kjonaas, 28, Lauren Gazzola, 26, and Jacob Conroy, 30, all of Pinole, Calif.; Darius Fullmer, 29, of Hamilton, N.J.; Andrew Stepanian, 27, of Huntington, N.Y.; and Joshua Harper, 31, of Seattle.

The six face three to seven years in prison and fines up to $250,000.

Some companies ended their relationship with Huntingdon Life as a result of SHAC's campaign, prosecutors said, including Bank of America, Deloitte & Touche and Marsh & McLennan.

The federal government charged that SHAC waged a five-year campaign against Huntingdon Life, posting on its Web site information about the lab's employees and those who do business with Huntingdon, including their home phone numbers, addresses and where their children attended school.

Many of those people saw their homes vandalized, and they and their families received threatening e-mail, faxes and phone calls. Many also were besieged by protesters parading with photos of mutilated animals and screaming "Puppy killer!" through megaphones at all hours outside their homes.

One woman said she received an e-mail threatening to cut her 7-year-old son open and stuff him with poison. A man said he was showered with glass as people smashed all the windows of his home and overturned his wife's car.

An employee of Bank of New York, which did business with Huntingdon Life, was cursed at his home by four defendants, and his boat was later sunk, authorities said.

The defendants were not accused of directly making threats or carrying out vandalism.

Instead, they were charged with inciting the harassment with their Internet postings.

Mike Caulfield, Huntingdon's general manager, said the verdict was "a victory for democracy, research and patients."

After the verdict, U.S. District Judge Anne Thompson ordered the detention of all the defendants except Fullmer.

Material from Reuters, The Associated Press and Bloomberg News is included in this report.