Arrow’s Shield
Tre Arrow’s defense? Spotlighting the activists who ratted him out.
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 Tre accusé: (Clockwise from top): Arrow, Angie Cesario, Jeremy Rosenbloom and Jake Sherman. IMAGE: photo courtesy Katu |
[March 12th, 2008]
Tre Arrow’s courtroom defense strategy appears poised to cast doubt on his fellow environmental activists, who accused Arrow of helping blow up two logging trucks and a front-end loader near Eagle Creek in 2001.
In court documents filed March 4, Arrow’s defense attorneys asked federal prosecutors to hand over cooperation agreements the feds struck with Jake Sherman, Jeremy Rosenbloom and Angie Cesario.
The three faced life in prison in connection with the Eagle Creek bombings. All three named Arrow in exchange for sentences of 41 months.
After nearly four years in Canadian prisons fighting extradition to the United States, Arrow (“Grooming an Elf,” WW, Nov. 26, 2003) gave up that battle and returned to Portland on Feb. 29 to face charges in connection with the Eagle Creek bombings and a similar attack on gravel trucks in Portland in 2001.
The charismatic 34-year-old Arrow has been painted by the FBI as an “eco-terrorist” and now faces life in prison.
Arrow’s supporters have long held there were large discrepancies in what his three college-aged accusers told investigators. Specifically, it’s believed Sherman said Arrow masterminded the attack, whereas Rosenbloom and Cesario said Sherman was the leader.
Bruce Ellison, one of Arrow’s attorneys, says no one knows for sure what the three said until the feds hand over several key documents, including papers that U.S. prosecutors filed with the Supreme Court of British Columbia.
“I think that the Canadian documents do suggest some discrepancy,” Ellison says.
Paul Loney, another Arrow defense attorney, questions whether the three accusers can be trusted at all, given that prosecutors offered them reduced sentences. “They had every incentive to name Tre,” Loney says.
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Arrow’s attorneys also asked prosecutors in the new court documents to hand over “any psychological or psychiatric evaluations of Jacob Sherman from 2001 through the present.” That suggests they may call into question Sherman’s competence as a witness against Arrow.
Assistant U.S. Attorney Stephen Peifer, the lead prosecutor, declined to discuss the case or to confirm whether any such psychiatric evaluations exist. U.S. District Judge James Redden gave Peifer until Thursday, March 13, to hand over the documents.
When Sherman was sentenced in 2003, his family and friends described him as a troubled young man whose family was struck by tragedy. When Sherman was 12, his mother—a police officer in training—was raped by a fellow cadet. His parents separated one year later.
Sherman’s mother said she suffered post-traumatic stress disorder, panic attacks and depression. Sherman and his two siblings all went on medication for attention-deficit disorder, she wrote, and in 1999, when Sherman was 17, he went through drug treatment for marijuana.
Family members recounted how Sherman entered Portland State University, met Arrow and radically changed his lifestyle. He became a vegan, and ceased to bathe or wear shoes.
“It was like he was brainwashed,” wrote Carol Culbertson, Sherman’s grandmother. “Up until then Jacob would never think of damaging someone’s property.… I feel Jacob is a fall guy for Tre Arrow.”
Coming from the perspective of someone who has a hippie background and lives near the Eagle Creek bombing site, I have no sympathy for Arrow and his kind. Violence is not a solution and will never bring somebody to your side unless they're already prone to violence. He is a scumbag and deserves to do hard time in a federal pound-me-in-the-ass prison.
That being said, calling him an "eco-terrorist" is absurd. Arrow and is friends are VANDALS and CRIMINALS. Terrorism is a word that should be reserved for truly horrific acts that are designed to bring fear to entire communities or nations, not for property crimes. It diminishes the power of the word and gives more political attention to the accused than they deserve. Even if somebody had died in these bombings, he would be a murderer, not a terrorist. Both will get locked up for life but one is a legal term and the other is a political term.
Call him what you want, he's a lowlife vandal scum that deserves to rot but certain parties would like to make into a bigger boogeyman threat than he actually is for their own political agendas. Lock him up and throw away the key if you want, but don't give him more power than he deserves by calling him a terrorist.
He's a sociopath, a criminal, and a loser. No more, no less.
Wow, seems like arrow has lots of lawyers working hard on his behalf. I just wonder who is footing the bill for all these bottom-feeding attorneys?
The Attornys want "free ink". Ledge Boy should have stuck with his high-wire act like the one he did downtowm. fun! and it was fun to throw things at him up there! lots-o-laffs! now he'll spend his life in prison and no more publicity. where's scott peterson these days? nothing.
Klaatu: Err, well, yeah. If he is convicted of the crimes he is accused of, environmental terrorism, yes - he should die in prison.
We must not allow *any* faction of our society to think that violence is an acceptable vehicle of expression.
Those that would attempt to change minds by violence need to be dealt with pretty harshly. Pretty damned simple folks.
He needs to die an old man in prison to show what happens when you threaten our way of life.
When you try to cower us with fear and violence instead of logical persusion, you're going to die an anonymous little death in a 8X6X4 concrete box.
This is still America Klaatu.
Maybe I am a little confused here, but why would somone get life in prison for blowing up some logging trucks? Isn't life in prison reserved for people like murderers and rapists? This trial is seriously not only a waste of time, but a waste of taxpayer money. Give the guy some time in prison, and then let him get on with his life. And Deke, no one not even you has the right to decide who lives or dies in prison or anywhere else for that matter. It is not your right, and you insult yourself and our society by offering such immature comments. In addition to this, your ending comment this is stil America is indeed correct, so stop sounding like your from North Korea. Deke Jung Ill. :)
Deal - destroying the logging trucks isn't his worst crime. His (unforgivable) crime is to think you can change people minds, or change environmental policy, or our society by violence and terrorism. That's a threat to our way of life.
And I do have the right, as a citizen, to believe whatever I choose, or conduct a lawful business without some little shitheel burning my property simply to make a political statement. That makes him a terrorist.
I'd be more than happy to buy his ticket to Gitmo.
WW added: "FACT: Arrow is being held in Multnomah County Detention Center until his trial, scheduled for May 6. Read an update from Arrow written from his Portland jail cell at trearrow.org."
That is very misleading. He has NO access to ANY computer when in jail in Portland. He probably just gave it to his "lawyers" or mailed it to a friend.
As for his actions, you may like to think that he didn't "harm" anyone by blowing up what was NOT his to touch, but what about all the people that have lost work due to him and his ilk? All you little dumb idiots that think he did no harm don't give a rat's ass about all the workers they've effected with their VIOLENT behaviors.
I am a friend and supporter of Tre and hey Deke, what makes you so sure he is guilty? Because you read it in the newspaper? Funny, those that know him know he is innocent. All those who think he is guilty get their information from the media and have no idea who Tre is. Nobody innocent has ever been accused of a crime, huh? What world do you live in? That's why we have a justice system. Determining guilt or innocence is not the role of the media or armchair critics like yourself. Wait for the trial and you'll see what are crock these accusations are.
I want to point out another flaw in your logic.
"We must not allow *any* faction of our society to think that violence is an acceptable vehicle of expression." Except the state, right? Except other prisoners who you would wish to abuse him?
Stop talking about this case as if it has already been decided!
He didn't do it. Those who know him no he didn't do it. Just like what Kalanu said, "All those who think he is guilty get their information from the media and have no idea who Tre is."
Kalanu - Between Scarpitti and the U.S. legal authorities, I'll take the latter.
I read Indymedia all the time & have read countless diatribes by your creepy little friend.
He was happy to take credit for his crimes until he started losing his extradition fight. Don't think they aren't going to be used against the little attention whore in court.
I'm going to enjoy watching him get sentanced to a very long, dismal confinement.
He will be made an example of. If you're a friend of his, I suggest you and your associates learn where a terroists road leads you:
Confinement or death.
Anyone who thinks he wasn't involved in these crimes is an idiot. You don't hide out in another country fighting extradition for years - for a property crime - if you know you're innocent. You only do that if you know you're guilty.
What annoys me is that an accused felon and extradited fugitive can demand a special vegan raw-food diet while incarceration - and get it! Excuse me, but if you commit a crime and go to prision, you give up certain rights, including what you get to eat, where you get to sleep, and who you get to ***k.
Whether or not Tre Arrow is found guilty or innocent in an American court of law, this seems to be a cogent argument:
The object lesson is ... to see how easily anyone can be misled by a high-sounding ideology into transgressing basic moral values. --Peter Coyote
Whoever did it, something wrong was done. It didn't help, not one whit. It gave earth-huggers everywhere a bad name and a black eye. Violence and destruction are not good tools for changing the world to a greener place.
If he is found guilty, I'd like to see Tre Arrow sentenced to working for life on a Forest Service crew, restoring the environment. Not punished by lifetime incarceration in a tiny concrete cell, but rehabilitated as a working environmentalist. Building a picnic table is better and far more dharmic than building a fire on someone else's property. Sending Tre Arrow to prison would be a waste, IMHO.
Socrates, know thyself. You may be right about all the rest of it, but think of the chutzpah in demanding (and getting!) a vegan diet. You should watch Cool Hand Luke a couple of times, maybe ...
why are you writing the story? do you think that anyone feels sorry for these scumbags? just another sob story, feel sorry for us. wrong answer, life in prison, hard labor, no tv, no sports and no rights.
DEKE- Eco Terrorism and Tre Arrow? Do you even know what your talking about? Maybe you should know the meaning of the words that you are using? Websters says "Terrorism-the systematic use of terror especially as a means of coercion. If that doesn't clear the up your misuse of the word, you don't understand the words "systematic" or "coercion". I can keep going and going. Please educate yourself before you speak. I honestly hope that instead of being angry with me, you looked into the words. Know I have to ask you, "How did Tre Arrow's (alleged) arsons make you feel threatened?" Unless you were a homeless guy sleeping under the truck or you drove / owned that truck should you feel threatened by this.
Why do you write this in a manner positive to this puke Scarpitti?
Why use the term "ratted out" - except to purposefully cast doubt on the statements of the three. Who, by the way, have already plead guilty.
Co-defendants statements are used every day in this state to convict criminal suspects.
It isn't trendy, edgy, or cool to support a terrorist. Even if he is motivated by the environment.
So much for even-handed reporting.
This creep should die in prison.