Judge orders eco-terrorist to read Malcolm Gladwell during five-year prison term

PORTLAND, Ore., Jan. 29 (UPI) -- A federal judge in Portland, Ore., sentenced a Canadian woman who admitted to taking part in eco-terrorism firebombings as a member of the Earth Liberation Front and Animal Liberation Front to five years in prison and decreed that she must read David and Goliath by Malcolm Gladwell while she is incarcerated.

Chief U.S. District Judge Ann Aiken said that Rebecca Rubin could learn non-violent means of protest by reading Gladwell’s book. Aiken also told Rubin to read Nature's Trust by University of Oregon environmental law professor Mary C. Wood.

Prosecutors were hoping for a stiffer sentence for the former fugitive, but Aiken was impressed by Rubin's apology statement to her friends, family and the targets of the ALF and ELF.

"I was so convinced at the righteousness of my beliefs, that I chose to ignore my own wrongdoing," Rubin said in her apology. "Although at the time I believed my only motivation was my deep love for the earth, I now understand that impatience, anger, egotism and self-righteousness were also involved," she wrote of the 1998 attacks.

"In retrospect, I recognize how immature my actions were. I am now forty years old and have had much time to reflect on and consider the consequences of my choices, and my thinking has become much more coherent. I know now that my actions were not merely destructive of inanimate objects but were also harmful to other, feeling human beings."

Federal prosecutors were hoping Rubin would be sentenced to seven-and-a-half years. Rubin pleaded guilty to arson, attempted arson and conspiracy to commit arson in Oregon, Colorado and California.

"I understand more than you know when you work in a democracy that all things look like they're black and white when you're young," Aiken said. "And there are so many shades of gray."

Rubin turned herself in to the FBI in late 2012 at the Washington-Canada border.

[The Oregonian] [Canadian Press]