Lauren Weiner, one of three people convicted in an eco-terror plot targeting Sacramento-area installations, was sentenced Thursday to three weeks she has already spent in jail and three years of supervised release, including five months of home detention.
Four people, including a young woman working undercover for the FBI, talked in 2005 of damaging or destroying what three of them saw as symbols of environmental degradation, including a forest genetics lab in Placerville, and Nimbus Dam and a neighboring fish hatchery in Rancho Cordova.
Weiner pleaded guilty in May 2006 to conspiracy in connection with the trio's plans to blow up commercial and government facilities and cooperated with prosecutors.
Co-defendant Zachary Jenson, who also cooperated, was sentenced last week to six months in jail that he had already served and three years of supervised release.
The conspiracy's nominal leader, Eric McDavid, now 31, was found guilty by a jury in September 2007 and was sentenced by England to 19 years and seven months in prison. Weiner and Jenson, both now 23, testified for the government at the trial. McDavid has appealed his conviction.
On Wednesday, prosecutor R. Steven Lapham argued and U.S. District Judge Morrison C. England Jr. agreed that Weiner was more culpable than Jenson; so a slightly stiffer penalty was appropriate.
Despite the lenient sentences he imposed on Weiner and Jenson, the judge emphasized the deadly serious nature of their crime, noting the "potential for extreme violence and even death."
Like Jenson's lawyer last week, Weiner's attorney and cousin, Jeffrey Weiner, told England Thursday his client "is a totally different person than the one who was arrested on Jan. 13, 2006." He stressed the charitable work she has done for the poor in New York's Westchester County, where she resides, and that she recently opened a cafe.
England ordered she be allowed to go to her job during home detention.
"She has matured, is clean (of drugs and alcohol), and is a productive member of society," Weiner said.
He also said she cooperated with the government in the face of pleas to remain silent by associates of the Earth Liberation Front, a loose network of conservation militants.
Lapham agreed that Lauren Weiner appears to have turned her life around.
Call The Bee's Denny Walsh, (916) 321-1189.
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