As I’ve reported before, the Coalition to Abolish the Fur Trade has in the passed faced a lawsuit from Jacques Ferber Furs which accused CAFT of violating the civil provisions of the Racketeer Influenced and Corrupt Organization.
CAFT, of course, denies that it is engaged in anything illegal but in May 2000, CAFT member Joseph Bateman was sentenced to jail time for felony criminal mischief and possession of an “instrument of crime.”
Now, it turns out, that Peter Schnell — who was sentenced in January 20 two years in prison for planning to blow up dairy trucks — also is has been affiliated with CAFT and the Animal Defense League (which was also named in Ferber’s RICO lawsuit).
New Jersey’s Asbury Park Press reported on January 30 that,
For Schnell, a 1998 graduate of Ocean Township HIgh School, the California arrest was not his first. In October 1998, Schnell was one of nine anti-fur protesters arrested after they chained themselves to security scanners and blocked entrance into Macy’s at Freehold Raceway Mall, Freehold Township, during the store’s grand opening.
Although sentenced to serve time in jail, Schnell was released on house arrest after several days.
“After I completely my house arrest, I am going to be back out there fighting for the animals,” Schnell said at the time.
He was also a regular at protests organized by the Coalition to Abolish the Fur Trade and the Animal Defense League. In his high school yearbook for his senior year he is quoted a saying, “Animal Liberation has to come soon and we have to fight as hard as we possibly can to make sure this is accomplished. Please Go Vegan.”
Along with providing additional ammunition to existing and possible future lawsuits against CAFT and the Animal Defense League, this also seriously undermines the judge’s decision in Schnell’s case to give him the minimum possible sentence. Given Schnell’s previous record, the judge’s decision not to give Schnell a longer sentence is mystifying.
Source:
Dairy terror plotter gets jail. Naomi Meuller, Asbury Park Press, January 30, 2002.