$50 Million Eco-Terror Arson Investigated

June 28, 2005 -- -- Nearly two years after a fire allegedly set by eco-terrorists did $50 million worth of damage to a San Diego luxury apartment complex construction site, a federal grand jury is investigating the case and several individuals questioned by the panel say they have been asked about an activist's lecture.

Rod Coronado, an environmental activist who served four years in prison for a 1992 fire at Michigan State University's mink research center, gave a lecture in San Diego the night after the Aug. 1, 2003, fire at the La Jolla Crossroads project.

Freelance journalist Michael Cardenas, one of the people subpoenaed to appear before the grand jury, said he was asked last week about Coronado's lecture and who was there.

"They didn't even ask me about the fire. The questions were, 'Do you know this person or that person?' " Cardenas told ABC News affiliate KGTV-TV in San Diego. He said he believes he and at least eight others were called to testify not because they had anything to do with the fire, but because they attended Coronado's lecture.

Coronado told ABCNews.com that investigators have not contacted him about the talk he gave, and he heard about the subject of the questioning from the organizers of the lecture.

"It seems very interesting to me because the questions surrounding my lecture are questions concerning something I thought wasn't a criminal thing to do -- give a lecture," he said. "It looks to me like they're doing what they've always done, which is going after the people who speak out. Being two years without any leads or connections in this case, the attorney general in San Diego is probably breathing down somebody's back to get something on this."

Most of the other people subpoenaed described themselves as animal rights or environmental activists, though one told KGTV-TV he belongs to a voter reform group. They said they would stage a protest today in front of the federal building, when the grand jury reconvenes.

"Under [the] First Amendment, you're supposed to have a right to free association, supposed to be able to go wherever we want, talk to whoever we want to without fear of being called into a closed room with a bunch of government agents," Cardenas said.

The U.S. attorney in San Diego and the FBI declined to comment on the ongoing investigation.

Direct Action

The Earth Liberation Front, a loosely organized movement comprised of people who believe that "direct action" in the form of acts such as arson at housing constructions or SUV dealerships is necessary to stop damage to the environment, claimed responsibility for the apartment complex fire. It left a banner at the site saying, "If You Build It We Will Burn It."

Coronado, who said he was in Tucson, Ariz., when the San Diego fire was set, said his prison term has not changed his belief in the need for "direct action," and that was the subject of his talk two years ago, as it is whenever he is invited to speak.

"It's no secret what I talk about at those lectures," he said. "I feel it's a very vital role to me to explain these movements. I'm not threatening anybody in the manner of the Unabomber. I'm unafraid to support tactics like arson in defense of the environment and animals. That's a role that I'm unwilling to waiver from."

The ELF has claimed responsibility for more than $200 million in damage since it surfaced in the mid-1990s, including such spectacular fires such as the one in San Diego and one in Aspen, Colo., that severely damaged a ski resort under construction.

Law enforcement, however, has had little success cracking the group because it has no leadership structure. Individuals or small groups who adopt the philosophy carry out actions independently, and in the few cases when arrests were made, police have seemed to learn little about any others who might be supporters of ELF.

Even the people who have acted as spokesmen for ELF, posting announcements or claims of responsibility and speaking with media about ELF philosophy, have provided little information to law enforcement.

A Domestic Al Qaeda?

"It's not like the traditional FBI investigation of, say, the national organized crime problems where there are a number of connections across jurisdictional lines. The localized nature of the problem does make it more difficult to investigate," Randy Parson, an FBI agent who deals with domestic terror groups, told KGTV-TV last year.

He compared ELF to al Qaeda in the way cells are isolated from one another to limit how deeply law enforcement can penetrate the group if any of its followers are arrested.

The FBI has called radical environmentalist groups like ELF, the Animal Liberation Front and Stop Huntingdon Animal Cruelty the most dangerous domestic terrorism threat, though their tactics differ.

No one has been killed and only a handful of people have been injured in the dozens of fires ELF has claimed responsibility for, and though more aggressive rhetoric has appeared associated with ELF in the past couple years, for most of its existence, statements from the group have maintained that all life is sacred, even the lives of people it considered to be destroying the environment, and every effort is taken to avoid putting people at risk.

SHAC, on the other hand, has been accused of campaigns of harassment and some physical attacks on employees of companies that do business with Huntingdon Life Sciences, a biological research company, in an effort to damage the lab financially.

Several SHAC activists were tried this month at a federal court in New Jersey, but a mistrial was declared last week when one of the defense attorneys fell ill, and a new trial is scheduled for September.

A 'Government Shakedown'?

In San Francisco, a grand jury also convened last week to investigate two firebombings in 2003 linked to an animal rights activist, Daniel Andreas San Diego. He is accused of firebombings at a biotechnology firm in Emeryville in August 2003 and at a health, beauty and household products company in Pleasanton a month later.

Ben Rosenfeld, a lawyer working with several of the people called to testify, said authorities are trying to intimidate people who are active in environmental causes, even though they already know they have not been harboring San Diego.

"They're people who can be loosely connected with him, but apart from that there's no nexus," he said. "They're very above-board protesters who have numerous arrests for civil disobedience, people who are associated with above-board environmental groups. A number of these people have had their houses raided, they've been surveiled, so the government knows they haven't been harboring anyone."

There has been a federal arrest warrant out for San Diego ever since October 2003, after he disappeared while reportedly under FBI surveillance. There is a $50,000 reward for his capture.

He is described as a having a round tattoo, approximately 5 inches in diameter, of burning hillsides and plains in the center of his chest, black and white tattoos of ruined and burning buildings on his left abdomen and lower back, and a tattoo of a leafless tree on the center of his lower back.

The FBI considers San Diego armed and dangerous because he is known to have a 9mm handgun and bomb-making materials were allegedly found in his abandoned car on Oct. 6, 2003.

The FBI reported that San Diego follows a strict vegan diet, wears eyeglasses and has been known to travel internationally.

But Rosenfeld said he does not believe the grand jury investigation is really about finding the fugitive.

"The most charitable thing that could be said about this behavior is that they're trying to conduct an investigation into crimes by harassing other people," he said. "There's a long history here of abuse of the grand jury system, and left-wing people and political dissidents know when they get before a grand jury they're facing all kinds of invasive questions about their actions, their beliefs, their family and associates, and it really is anathema to a free society."