NOTE: Christine Garcia represented the “SHAC 7” defendents, each of
which were convicted of multiple federal felonies, receiving sentences
ranging from 1 to 6 years in prison.
---------------------------

San Jose Mercury News
Attorney: Arrested animal rights activists were exercising free speech; '
By Jennifer Squires - Sentinel staff writer
Posted: 02/24/2009 01:30:40 AM PST
http://www.mercurynews.com/centralcoast/ci_11771231?nclick_check=1

Supporters of the four animal rights activists arrested by the FBI
last week say the activists were exercising their free speech rights
as nonviolent objectors trying to increase the public's awareness of
animal cruelty in University of California research centers.

"It's strange. They act like these people are speaking completely out
of context," said attorney Christine Garcia of the Animal Law Office
in San Francisco. "These people are just vocalizing the reality of
what these vivisectors are doing."

Garcia, who is representing Joseph Buddenberg, 25, of Berkeley, said
what her client and his co-defendants -- one-time Cabrillo College
student Nathan Pope, 26, of Oceanside and former UCSC students Adriana
Stumpo, 23, of Long Beach and Maryam Khajavi, 20, of Pinole -- are
accused of doing are actually constitutionally protected activities.

"This is sort of silly in a way," said Jerry Vlask, spokesman for the
Animal Liberation Press Office. "They're targeting people who are
doing above-ground demonstrations and calling what they're doing
terrorism. ... I don't really know why they think this is going to
make any kind of a difference."

The foursome are accused of being involved in demonstrations in front
of homes of UC Berkeley researchers in October 2007 and January 2008,
as well as a protest and home invasion attempt at the California

Street home of a UC Santa Cruz researcher in February 2008. In that
attack, which occurred during a child's birthday party, the
scientist's husband suffered minor injuries.

Garcia, who briefly represented Pope last fall when he was accused of
perjury, said the four were targeted by investigators because their
demonstrations drew the public's attention to the biomedical
researchers' work, which she called "a dirty little secret."

The researchers "are actually having to face it. They're actually
having to realize that they're responsible for these deaths of
animals," Garcia said. "They don't like to hear that. I think they
just don't like being accountable to the public at large for those
deaths."

Vlask, a physician, said he and his organization, which is not
directly affiliated with any activist group, believe the research is
unnecessary.

"I can tell you we're not going to learn anything torturing these
animals in labs," he said. "These people are wasting millions of
dollars injecting methamphetamines and making tweakers out of
monkeys."

Buddenberg and Khajavi are scheduled to appear in U.S. District Court
in San Jose on Thursday. Pope and Stumpo, who were arrested in
Charlotte, N.C., are being extradited back to California.

The suspects will be charged at least in part under the federal Animal
Enterprise Terrorism Act, which carries a penalty of up to five years
for each violation. However, Garcia said the law is overbroad and
prime for constitutional challenges. It also may encourage protesters
to go to greater extremes because the law carries the same penalty for
a wide spectrum of demonstrations, Vlask said.

"It's making people who were formerly willing to protest and hand out
leaflets ... Those people are saying, Heck, I can spend five years in
prison for doing these things but I can pour some paint stripper on a
guy's car or even light it on fire,' " and get the same punishment,
Vlask said.

The foursome is not accused of involvement in the July firebombings at
the homes of two UCSC scientists. Those attacks remain under
investigation, the FBI reported.