The following comes from Shac 7 webpage explaining the indictment:
Originally, seven individuals were charged, along with the organization Stop Huntingdon Animal Cruelty USA. The individuals were Kevin Kjonaas, Lauren Gazzola, Jacob Conroy, Joshua Harper, Andrew Stepanian, Darius Fullmer, and John McGee. McGee was eventually dropped from the case.
All of the defendants were charged with conspiracy to violate the Animal Enterprise Protection Act, a never-before-applied 1992 statute. Kjonaas, Gazzola, Conroy, and Harper were also charged with conspiracy to harass using a telecommunications device (sending black faxes). Kjonaas, Gazzola, Conroy, and SHAC USA were charged with conspiracy to commit interstate stalking and three counts of interstate stalking via the Internet.
While the charges themselves sound alarming, the defendants are not actually accused of having personally engaged in terrorist or threatening acts. Instead, the government’s case centers around the idea that aboveground organizers of a campaign are responsible for any and all acts that anyone engages in while furthering the goals of the organizers. In this case, the claim is that the SHAC7 should be imprisoned because underground activists took illegal actions against companies with ties to H.L.S.
If it weren’t so serious, this distortion of the law would be laughable, and yet somehow the defendants were convicted and are now facing years in federal prison based on the claim that being part of an activist campaign is tantamount to being a member of a global conspiracy.
Here is the rest of the background.
This story has not received much press and your support is needed to help spread the word and to raise funds so that a succesful appeal can be mounted. For more info about the case and for ways to offer support go here.
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