A Los Angeles County grand jury arraigned two animal rights activists yesterday (Apr. 20) charged with ten felonies, including stalking and conspiracy to threaten a public officer or school employee, for allegedly harassing University of California, Los Angeles, scientists who use animals in their research.

Called "associates of the Animal Liberation Front" by the LA County's District Attorney's office, Linda Greene, 61, and Kevin Olliff, 22, were charged on March 27th with demonstrating outside the home of UCLA psychiatrist Lynn Fairbanks in July 2006 while shouting obscenities and threatening to burn the house down, among other offenses. The indictment also alleged that Greene was involved in the attempted planting of an incendiary device outside Fairbanks's home the previous month. The two pled not guilty to the charges and are currently in custody.

UCLA Chancellor Gene Block praised the action. "UCLA is steadfastly committed to protecting our world-class researchers from harassment as they continue their vital work toward treatments and cures for a wide variety of afflictions," Block said in a statement. "While we respect the rights of those who hold different views on the use of animals in research, the use of criminal tactics is deplorable. We're grateful to UCLA's police department for working with other law enforcement agencies to gather the evidence that led to these arrests, as well as to the district attorney's office for recognizing the seriousness of the crimes against our researchers."

Both defendants are due to appear again in court on May 20 for a pretrial hearing.

The arraignment comes on the eve of dueling protests, one against animal research at UCLA and one pro-research, led by UCLA neuroscientist J. David Jentsch, scheduled to be held on the UCLA campus tomorrow.

Update, 04/22: In related news, the FBI announced yesterday that it has added Daniel Andreas San Diego, a 31-year-old California animal rights activist, to its Most Wanted Terrorists List. This earns San Diego, who is wanted for allegedly bombing two San Francisco-area offices in 2003, the dubious distinctions of being the first animal rights activist to make the FBI's Most Wanted list and the first American to make the agency's terrorist list.


Related stories:

UCLA scientist's car firebombed
[11th March 2009]

Calif. animal activists arrested
[23rd February 2009]

Animal rights activists jailed
[21st January 2009]

Image: flickr/pmark