Oregon Ecoterrorism Suspect Pleads Guilty
“Guilty,” she said, in a voice so soft a judge had to ask her to speak up.
It was the first of three admissions of guilt she made Thursday to arson and conspiracy charges, and with them, consented to give up at least five years of her freedom. She will be sentenced on Jan. 27.
Rubin’s plea was the latest admission of wrongdoing by members of “The Family” in a series of arsons across three Western states from 1996 to 2001 that did $40 million in damage.
Ten people pleaded guilty in 2007 to conspiracy and arson charges and were sentenced to prison. Two others indicted in the case remain at large.
Her attorney, Richard Troberman, described her seven years on the run as “a prison without walls.”
Assistant U.S. Attorney Steven Peifer laid out the factual basis for the charges against her, beginning with the freeing of wild horses from a federal horse-slaughter facility in Oregon in 1997. Other members of the group planted incendiary devices — the indictment doesn’t specify the type of devices — which burned the facility.
He then described a December 1998 incident, when Rubin helped ferry equipment for an attempted arson at a U.S. Forest Industries building in Oregon, and later that year, helped prepare for an arson at a Colorado ski resort. Neither attempt worked, but both buildings were later burned in separate environmentally-motivated fires.