ELFer Mason sentencing today (Detroit Free Press)‏
Sent: February 5, 2009 2:22:39 PM
Detroit Free Press
Eco-activist to be sentenced today for MSU arson
BY BILL McGRAW • FREE PRESS COLUMNIST
February 5, 2009
http://www.freep.com/article/20090205/COL27/902050384 Marie Mason was a nonviolent environmental activist, animal lover and
single mom who grew up in Westland and Plymouth.
She became a political arsonist, though, and a member of the Earth
Liberation Front. She torched boats, McMansions under construction and
the Michigan State University Agriculture Hall to protest research
into genetically modified crops.
She got caught and admitted what she had done. Now, the U.S.
government wants to put Mason, 47, in prison for 20 years.
That's the legal summary of her case.
On a human scale, friends, supporters and observers continue to marvel
at how Mason came to be indicted: Her then-husband -- an ELF member
who lit the MSU fire -- secretly recorded Mason incriminating herself
while he worked for the FBI. He got 9 years in prison.
"They were still married," said Mason's sister, Germaine Finley.
"Isn't that creepy?"
Creepy but great method for getting leniency from the courts. What better way to exonerate oneself from just how such hypocrites operate. Even better for the law as they can really get a feel for just how guilty their targets are. Mason's prosecution has become the talk of activists across the
country. And it is to reach a conclusion this morning in Lansing,
where Mason, who pleaded guilty to arson and conspiracy in September,
is scheduled to be sentenced by U.S. District Judge Paul Maloney.
Mason's conduct "represents a complete rejection of how America's free
society functions," Assistant U.S. Attorney Hagen Frank told Maloney
in a memo on the sentencing. Mason "remains an unrepentant and
unapologetic advocate of violence and intimidation as a means of
protest."
Her attorney, John Minock of Ann Arbor, told the judge that Mason is
indeed sorry for what she did and recognizes that she could have
injured someone. He also noted she performed her last act of
environmental sabotage in 2003, five years before the government
charged her.
"She is very sad, contemplating the unintended angst her acts caused
in others," Minock said.
Frank describes Mason as an "eco-extremist" mastermind, despite her
"demure public manner and unthreatening physical appearance."
Friends and family members say Mason is a passive, self-effacing,
volunteer-type who helped feed needy people in the Cass Corridor, took
in homeless people, named her cats after political legends Emma
Goldman and Rosa Parks and worked peacefully against the construction
of the Detroit incinerator.
"She was a small woman, intense and serious, passionate about the
sanctity of all life and burdened by her fear for the Earth and its
inhabitants," Julianne Cuneo, a longtime acquaintance, told the judge
in a letter.
Mason graduated from Plymouth Salem High School with honors and did
graduate studies in chemistry at Wayne State University. In 1999, she
married an environmental activist and wood-floor refinisher named
Frank Ambrose, now 34.
When she pleaded guilty to conspiracy and arson in September, Mason
told the judge that on New Year's Eve 1999, she and Ambrose broke into
the Agriculture Hall office of an MSU staffer who was asking countries
to use genetically modified crops on behalf of the Monsanto Co.,
rather than seeds nurtured over generations. She believed, as do many
environmentalists, that Monsanto's products can be dangerous.
Mason spray-painted anti-genetic-crop graffiti on the wall and planned
to destroy the office, but a fire Ambrose said he ignited exploded
into a fireball that grew into a blaze that caused more than $1
million in damage and burned Mason's hair. No one else was injured.
Because they were activists, authorities had their eyes on Mason and
Ambrose for years. The FBI finally nabbed Ambrose in 2007 after a
scrapper, foraging in a suburban Detroit trash bin, discovered maps,
gas masks and radical writings that Ambrose had thrown away.
Agents,
as they say, flipped Ambrose, turning him into a confidential
informant who traveled the country, talking to radical
environmentalists while he wore a recording device. He pleaded guilty in October to arson conspiracy. Ambrose and Mason
are now divorced.
Mason admitted to 12 other acts of eco-sabotage between 1999 and 2003.
She has refused to cooperate with prosecutors.
Mason discussed her life under indictment and thanked supporters in a
story for the summer issue of the Fifth Estate, the left-leaning
political journal.
She wrote: "As a strong community of resistance, we can withstand the
repression of the state and continue to fight for the Earth
everywhere."
Contact BILL McGRAW at bmcgraw@freepress.com.