Rocky Mountain News
YACHT RACER TO ARSONIST
ELF member, turned U.S. witness, describes her double life as
high-tech worker and key figure
By Allyn Harvey
Saturday, March 8, 2008
http://www.rockymountainnews.com/news/2008/mar/08/yacht-racer-to-arsonist/A former University of Colorado student who left academia for the
clandestine world of environmental extremism was a key witness against
an activist with the Earth Liberation Front in a trial that ended
Thursday.
Jennifer Kolar, 34, who now lives in Seattle, described to jurors a
double life of yacht racing and environmental terrorism with the same
shadowy, loose-knit group that torched buildings at the Vail Mountain
Ski Resort in 1998.
Kolar testified against Briana Waters, telling jurors that her former
friend helped her and three others set a massive fire at the
University of Washington.
Kolar also admitted to trying in 1998 to burn down the Wray Gun Club
in Wray, one of four arsons she confessed to in her deal with
prosecutors. Her testimony against Waters was part of her deal.
Waters was on trial for conspiracy, arson and other charges in this
blue collar, industrial center about 35 miles south of Seattle. The
jury found Waters guilty Thursday, on two counts of arson after a week
of deliberation.
This sleepy backdrop for the Waters trial, on a crime that has faded
from the memory of many in the Northwest, was thrust into public view
Monday when three luxury homes in a posh suburb north of Seattle were
destroyed by arsonists who left a banner behind attributing the blaze
to ELF. Investigators cautioned against concluding the group was
behind the fire despite the banner, which has been sent to an FBI
laboratory for analysis.
The Earth Liberation Front is a underground group of environmental
extremists who burned down the Two Elks Lodge and other facilities
high on the slopes of the Vail ski area in October 1998. Although
Kolar lived in Colorado at the time of the fire, she was not involved,
according to court documents.
Kolar and Waters are among 19 people charged in connection with a
series of ELF arsons in the West between 1996 and 2001, according to a
Department of Justice spokeswoman. One committed suicide. Thirteen
pleaded guilty after reaching sentencing deals with the government.
Four are believed to have fled the country. Waters is the only one to
go to trial.
Prosecutors maintained Waters, a 32-year-old violin teacher and mother
who lives in Berkeley, Calif., joined with Kolar and three others
early on May 21, 2001, to set fire to the Center for Urban
Horticulture. The fire caused $7 million in damages and destroyed
offices, labs and archives.
Kolar testified that she and three others sneaked across an open field
to the targeted facility, used glass cutters to enter through a window
and set time-delayed incendiary devices in the office of Toby
Bradshaw, a professor of biology they believed to be engaged in
genetic engineering of poplar trees. Waters served as the lookout,
Kolar said.
The verdict means Waters will serve five to 20 years in prison. Jurors
were deadlocked on other charges, including one that would have sent
her to jail for a minimum of 30 years.
Kolar, who is accused of a much more active role with the Earth
Liberation Front, faces seven years in prison because of her
cooperation with the investigation.
"I just decided to go in and tell the truth, and try and put all this
behind me," she told jurors.
Fall from grace
Like many other ELF activists, Kolar described a path from academic
promise to criminal infamy. She earned a bachelor's degree in applied
mathematics from CU in 1995, a master's in astrophysics in 1997, then
spent two years working toward a Ph.D. in oceanography, according to
university records.
Kolar testified that she got her start in activism as an undergraduate
working with the Colorado Public Interest Research Group, volunteering
with Rocky Mountain Animal Defense and teaching at a student
environmental center on the CU campus.
In the winter of 1996-97, she told jurors, she met activist Jonathan
Paul at an animal rights conference in Minnesota.
Paul, sentenced last summer to 51 months in prison for his part in the
arson that destroyed the Cavel West horse slaughterhouse in Redmond,
Ore., was active with the Animal Liberation Front and an ELF cell in
Eugene, Ore.
The two were soon in a romantic relationship, even though Paul lived
in Oregon, Kolar testified. In the summer of 1997, he asked if she was
interested in joining the movement. She said yes.
Kolar testified that she and Paul spent several days mixing an
inflammatory brew of vegetable glycerine soap, gasoline and diesel
fuel.
On July 21, the couple met three other ELF members - Joseph Dibee,
Jake Ferguson and Kevin Tubbs - in Eugene, Ore., and then traveled
south to a rendering plant owned by the Belgian company Cavel West.
According to court documents from Oregon, animal rights activists
considered Cavel West a particularly heinous facility that destroyed
wild horses rounded up and sold by the Bureau of Land Management.
Using the fuel mixture created by Kolar and Paul and delayed timing
devices built by Dibee, the group set the horses outside free and
burned the slaughterhouse to the ground.
End of friendships
Kolar said she flew home to resume her normal life, embarking on her
Ph.D. and working as a consultant for a scientific software company.
Paul cut her a check to cover travel expenses to and from the arson.
Kolar's next target was the Wray Gun Club in October 1998, chosen
because it was known for hosting contests to shoot prairie dogs.
"We at the RMAD had been unsuccessful trying to stop them, so we
decided to burn that gun club down," she testified. The attempt was
unsuccessful.
Kolar said she eventually abandoned her academic career and moved to
Seattle in 1999, to be closer to her father, she said, and her
boyfriend and fellow ELF activist Joe Dibee.
She continued her double life, working in lucrative high-tech jobs in
Seattle during the dotcom boom. She lived in a chic North Seattle
neighborhood with a boyfriend from outside the movement, and spent
weekends racing sailboats at the Corinthian Yacht Club.
According to evidence presented at the Waters trial, Kolar twice in
2001 helped execute successful arsons and then resumed her normal
life, racing her sailboat just a few days after the fire at the Center
for Urban Horticulture, and starting a vacation in Hawaii a day after
burning down a BLM horse corral in Northern California.
The FBI credits Kolar with taking ELF's communication methods to an
extremely advanced level. Combined with the group's meticulous use of
secretive communication protocols, Kolar's teaching on encryption
software and the use of remote servers known as "anonymizers" made
detection by law enforcement virtually impossible.
"This extraordinary 'wall of silence' is what kept their identity from
being discovered by law enforcement for such a long time," explains a
sentencing memorandum prepared by the U.S. Attorney's Office in
Oregon.
Asked how she now felt about her new role as a government informant,
Kolar admitted it was difficult.
"A lot of the people are people who were my friends," she said.
"Briana was my friend."
Guess the Lawyers know how to sort out true friendships better then fellow ELF hypocrites do. Ten minutes with a layer telling a future long time jail baiter that turning on a former friend is the best choice usually plays out like this case.