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A Des Moines environmental activist imprisoned for sabotaging construction of the Dakota Access Pipeline has failed to convince an appellate court it should cut her eight-year sentence because a lower court erred in applying a terrorism enhancement.
Jessica Reznicek, an activist connected to the Catholic Worker Movement, and fellow Iowan Ruby Montoya repeatedly vandalized construction sites connected to the 1,172-mile pipeline in 2016 and 2017, setting a bulldozer on fire and using oxy-acetylene torches to damage pipeline valves across Iowa. The total cost of the damage is not known, but in one incident in Buena Vista County alone it was estimated at $2.5 million.
The two women took credit for the attacks and were both charged in 2019 with multiple felonies. Reznicek pleaded guilty to a single charge of conspiracy to damage an energy facility and in June 2021 was sentenced to eight years in prison. She appealed that sentence, but on Monday, the 8th U.S. Circuit Court of Appeals ruled in a short, unsigned opinion that her sentence will stand.
Previously:Women who 'sabotaged' Dakota Access Pipeline charged almost 3 years after damages first reported
An attorney representing Reznicek, who is serving her sentence at a low-security federal correction institute in Waseca, Minnesota, declined to comment.
The appeal focused on the decision by Iowa U.S. District Judge Rebecca Goodgame Ebinger to apply a terrorism sentencing enhancement, applicable to crimes "calculated to influence or affect the conduct of government" by intimidation, coercion, or retaliation. That enhancement increased Reznicek's original recommended sentencing range 37 to 46 months, to 210 to 240 months — a maximum of 20 years — although the final sentence from Ebinger was less than half that.
Monday's decision does not address Reznicek's argument that, because she was opposing a private development and damaging private property, the terrorism enhancement was inapplicable. Instead, the appellate court notes that "any error was harmless" because Ebinger stated on the record that she would have imposed the same sentence with or without the terrorism enhancement.
The ruling comes amid opposition to proposed carbon capture pipelines that would run across Iowa, carrying liquefied carbon dioxide from ethanol plants and other agricultural industries to sequestration sites in North Dakota and Illinois. Ebinger said at the time of the sentencing that the sentence needed to be harsh to deter others from acting out.
The Des Moines Register has reached out to Energy Transfer Partners, primary owners of the pipeline, for comment.
'Laudable, misguided' motivations
Efforts by Reznicek, Montoya and others to oppose the Dakota Access Pipeline were ultimately unsuccessful. The underground pipeline runs from The Bakken shale oil fields in North Dakota to a terminal in Illinois, crossing Iowa diagonally from just south of Sioux Falls, South Dakota, to Keokuk and passing through northeast Polk County. It began operating in June 2017.
In claiming credit for their attacks, the women said their "direct action" was needed to protect natural resources and indigenous people's sovereignty and to stand up against what they felt to be unchecked and lawless corporate power.
"Our conclusion is that the system is broken and it is up to us as individuals to take peaceful action and remedy it, and this we did, out of necessity," Montoya said in a July 2017 news conference.
In sentencing Reznicek, Ebinger said she considered the motivation behind the sabotage. Her sentence balanced what she called Reznicek's "laudable, though ultimately misguided, motivations" and her subsequent efforts at rehabilitation against the fact that Reznicek encouraged others to join in her sabotage, damaged equipment in ways that caused "a grave risk to others," and continued her vandalism over a span of months.
Because of this, the appellate court rejected Reznicek's argument that her sentence was "substantively unreasonable.' Ebinger considered the applicable factors under federal sentencing law and the Eighth Circuit found no "clear error of judgment" on her part, upholding the sentence.
Activists 'frightened' by precedent
A group of Reznicek's friends and fellow activists have launched a campaign to free her, gathering to date 15,000 signatures on a petition to Congress and President Joe Biden. They are calling for repeal of the terrorism law applied to her and a pardon or commutation of her sentence.
Monte Pinger, a spokesman for the campaign, said in a statement that they were "frightened" by what they see as a decision allowing judges to impose terrorism enhancements "without accountability."
"This label automatically increased Jessica’s sentencing guidelines fivefold, and the appeal court, without fully examining whether this label was justified, decided to write it off as a 'harmless error,'" Pinger said "Protecting the environment is not terrorism, and Jessica should not be serving an eight-year prison sentence for trying to protect the water from an illegally permitted pipeline.“
Monday's decision is not the end to litigation over the pipeline attacks. Reznicek's co-defendant, Montoya, also reached a plea deal with prosecutors, but has been fighting since August 2021 to withdraw her plea and take the case to trial.
Montoya claims in court filings that her then-attorney, Lauren Regan, unfairly pressured her to accept the plea deal by telling her that prosecutors would penalize Reznicek if Montoya didn't plead guilty. Prosecutors oppose Montoya's attempt to change her plea, and the matter remains pending before the district judge.
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