St. Paul Pioneer Press (MN)
Feds say former Minnesota man helped solve Wisconsin eco-terrorism
By Ed White
Associated Press
Posted: 03/19/2009 12:01:00 AM CDT
http://www.twincities.com/allheadlines/ci_11950554?nclick_check=1 DETROIT — Ian Wallace is a graduate student in anthropology in New
York who has studied fossils in Kenya, combed excavations in Syria and
France and written about his research in scholarly journals.
But next week, he will be sentenced to federal prison for trying to
blow up two buildings at a Michigan university in 2001 when he was a
radical eco-saboteur.
It is another case of federal agents catching up to people who
formerly were passionate members of the Earth Liberation Front, known
as ELF.
"Ian Wallace's past has come back to harm him," Assistant U.S.
Attorney Hagen Frank said in a court filing this week.
The judge in the case "faces the difficult task of crafting an
appropriate sentence for a promising young man of 27 years for things
he did when he was barely more than a child," Frank wrote.
Wallace, a graduate student at Stony Brook University in Stony Brook,
N.Y., qualifies for 10 years in prison when he appears Monday in
federal court in Marquette in Michigan's Upper Peninsula.
But Frank is recommending a significant drop in the sentencing
guidelines to as low as 70 months, or just under six years, because of
Wallace's help in solving a case in Rhinelander, Wis., where 500
research trees were destroyed or badly damaged in ELF's name in 2000.
"His cooperation with the government has been extraordinary," defense
lawyer Edward Panzer said.
In October, Wallace pleaded guilty to attempting to firebomb two
buildings at Michigan Technological University in Houghton in November
2001.
After midnight, he and an acquaintance placed homemade incendiary
devices outside the buildings. Wallace said the goal was to destroy
tree research and intimidate the public. The timers, however, failed.
Frank's filing reveals details of how authorities snagged Wallace years later.
The FBI contacted him in January 2007 after a tip in an ELF-related
case in Oregon. Three months later, Wallace spilled his past to the
government, admitting the Michigan Tech crimes and providing critical
information about the attack on trees in Wisconsin, which caused $1
million in damage.
Three people subsequently were indicted and pleaded guilty in federal
court in Wisconsin, Frank said.
"This would not have happened but for (Wallace's) cooperation and his
readiness to testify at trial," the prosecutor wrote.
Wallace has acknowledged vandalizing vehicles at a Forest Service
research station at the University of Minnesota in April 2000. He also
has taken responsibility for an arson at a construction site at the
university in January 2002. The loss was $630,000.
Wallace's academic resume on the Stony Brook University Web site says
he graduated with high honors from Minnesota in 2006. It shows he has
traveled the world to pursue his interest in science.
Wallace "voluntarily abandoned his violent extremism in 2002, many
years before this prosecution commenced, and became a productive
member of society without the compulsion of imminent discovery or
punishment," Frank said.
In October, another ex-ELF member was sentenced to nine years in
prison for arson at Michigan State University in 1999. Frank Ambrose
was caught after he dumped remnants of his extremist past in a
Detroit-area trash bin in 2007.
He blew the whistle on his ex-wife, who was his accomplice in the
arson as well as other acts of destruction. Marie Mason recently was
sentenced to nearly 22 years in federal prison.