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Still not sorry; Activist gets 2 years of prison for freeing mink An animal rights activist who remained unrepentant about releasing an estimated 8,000 mink from Midwestern farms in 1997 was sentenced Tuesday in federal court to two years in prison and ordered to complete 360 hours of community service and repay $254,840 to his victims. Peter Young, 27, of Mercer Island, Wash., told Federal Magistrate Stephen Crocker that his biggest regret was, "I wish I could do more." "It was an act of conscience not directly against the farmers but in behalf of the animals," Young said. But to the mink farmers present, Young said, "It was absolute pleasure to have visited your farms ... and I wish I could have put more of you in bankruptcy." Crocker admonished the 50 or more supporters for applauding Young's remarks and then called Young "self-righteous" and said his violent actions were "unacceptable in a pluralistic society." "He terrorized honest people ... and I'm sure the blogs will be humming tonight about it, but he incited people to break the law, and if caught he'd do it again," Crocker said. Young's actions were the "antithesis of civil disobedience" because he and Justin C. Samuel entered mink farms near Independence, Medford and Tomahawk, Wis., in October 1997, released mink from pens and fled, said Crocker, who refused to lessen Young's sentence despite his guilty plea. Samuel had been previously sentenced to two years in prison after being extradited from Belgium, where he fled after being charged along with Young for interference with interstate commerce and animal enterprise terrorism. Young and Samuel were originally charged with felonies, but while they were on the run a U.S. Supreme Court ruling on extortion prevented the government from pursuing the felony counts. Assistant U.S. Attorney Robert Anderson said calling Young's actions civil disobedience was an insult to those engaged in legitimate public protest. "It's unbelievable for a petty thief to compare himself to Martin Luther King Jr. or Gandhi," Anderson said. Young's attorney, Chris Kelly, said his client wanted to be effective in releasing the caged mink and fled in order to continue doing it until he was caught in Sheboygan County in October 1997. Crocker said he didn't expect to change anyone's mind Tuesday that what Young did was wrong, and one of Young's supporters, Lindsay Parme, echoed that after court. "I'm not comparing Peter to what Harriet Tubman did, but she went in dark of night and freed slaves, and no one is calling her a terrorist .... We don't feel these animals should be murdered for their fur, and by going in at night, Peter gave thousands of these animals a chance at life, and I consider that very brave," Parme said. Alex Ott of Tomahawk, who after an insurance settlement lost mink valued at $7,125 due to the releases, said Young deserved to spend up to six years in prison. "You got a guy who goes in and attacks your business. It makes your family feel uncomfortable now. When he gets older, let me go in and do the same thing to him," Ott said after court. Young's and Samuel's raids put one South Dakota mink rancher out of business and caused other growers to invest in security systems, said Michael Mengar, president of the North American Fur Auction. Wisconsin remains the nation's largest mink raising state, and animal rights activists have largely shifted their focus to the treatment of animals used in medical research, Mengar and Parme said. |
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