Mason sentenced to almost 22 years for 1999 arson
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Lansing — The Ohio woman who pleaded guilty to setting Agriculture Hall on fire in 1999 was sentenced to almost 22 years in prison Thursday.
Marie Mason, 47, of Cincinnati, said she committed the arson with her then-husband Frank Ambrose on New Year’s Eve, 1999. She said the two set the offices of the Agriculture Biotechnology Support Project on fire to protest federally funded research on genetic modification of potatoes.
Hagen Frank, the U.S. attorney who prosecuted the case, said he found Mason’s sentence — 21 years and 10 months in prison and more than $4 million in restitution — appropriate though federal prosecutors had asked for a sentence of only 20 years.
“Eco-extremist groups may view (Mason’s) sentence as the government prosecuting an activist,” Frank said. “But we were prosecuting an arsonist.”
Mason and Ambrose were members of the Earth Liberation Front, or ELF, when they committed the arson. ELF is a radical environmental group that uses violence as a means of protest.
Ambrose was sentenced to nine years in federal prison in October. He had agreed in 2007 to be an informant to the FBI while it built the case against Mason, which is why he received a significantly reduced sentence. Frank said Mason was offered a similar deal to cooperate with investigators, and she repeatedly refused.
John Minock, who represented Mason, said the sentence is unheard of for an arson that was not set with the intent to commit murder. He said the defense plans to appeal the decision.
“Asking for a 20-year sentence for someone like Marie Mason is like using a cannon to shoot a mouse,” Minock said.
Andrew Arena, the special agent in charge of the FBI Detroit division, said ELF and its sister group, the Animal Liberation Front, or ALF, are simply domestic terrorist groups.
“They are nothing more than spoiled children who stamp their feet and sit in the corner to get their way,” Arena said. “They are increasingly turning to violence.”
He thanked MSU President Lou Ann K. Simon and MSU police Chief Jim Dunlap for their roles in the investigation, saying the FBI viewed it as a personal attack on MSU.
Frank pointed to Mason’s willingness to flaunt her exploits on the Internet as one of the reasons her sentence was higher than the requested 20 years. Though Mason expressed regret in court Thursday, she had previously recounted stories of the arson on her MySpace account, even after her arrest, Frank said.
Minock said the sentence was comparable to the average murder sentence, which is about 22.6 years. Chief U.S. District Judge Paul Maloney, who sentenced Mason, applied a terrorism enhancement to the sentence, causing it to escalate in severity. Minock said Maloney’s is a harsh sentencer, and the sentence was above and beyond what he thought was appropriate.
“I always hoped common sense would prevail,” Minock said. “I didn’t suggest a particular sentence, but a sentence of 12 years would have been more than enough.”
Also sentenced on Thursday for their roles in the arson were Stephanie Fultz and Aren Burthwick, both 28 years old and from Detroit. Frank said the two negotiated deals with the Justice Department, agreeing to help in the investigation of Mason. Both pleaded guilty to less serious charges of helping cover up the arson.
Frank said he believed these sentences were fair, based on Fultz and Burthwick’s roles in the arson.
“They were minor, minor players in this,” Frank said. “They were pulled in by Frank Ambrose and Marie Mason … they were basically with the wrong people on the wrong weekend.”
Staff writer Jacob Carpenter contributed to this report.
Commentary
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question
(02/05/09 3:19pm)Report
How the hell is she going to come up with 4.1 mil??
answer
(02/05/09 3:40pm)Report
Loans, expropriation of properties, taking over her accounts…..
Broad Ultra Vires
(02/05/09 4:15pm)Report
The judge slapped on a “terrorism enhancement”!? WHAT THE HELL IS A TERRORISM ENHANCEMENT!? Why not put her to work and make her earn the rest of the 4.1 million after you expropriate everything she has? This system is so backwards and broken. Yeah, she was wrong. Yeah, I agree arson is bad and she broke the law. But 21 years and 4.1 million (no injuries) brings her to justice about 5 times over. Protesting genetically engineered crops gets you terrorism charges… god help us all.
Appropriate
(02/05/09 4:18pm)Report
The 20 years seem appropriate for igniting a fire that could have led to the loss of life, and should show that Michigan unlike the west coast is against arson and will prosecute to the fullest extent.
As far as “question” goes — who cares where she will get 4.1 million. The point is that she has a financial obligation to pay and she won’t be able to sock away money that she might make from CourtTV making a made for TV movie. Also, she could ask her ELF buddies to pay up for her since she lit a building on fire on their behalf.
lol
(02/05/09 4:37pm)Report
21 years is absolutely appropriate. When activists do something like that, its always considered a terrorism act because of the magnitude of the committed act, it’s not just some prank, its a terrorism act.
This will be a good lesson to all other psycho activists. I have nothing against activists, its fine when they go on marches and completely peaceful strikes, but going around burning government buildings is just plain psycho. What if there was somebody in there? Don’t tell me that they searched the building before setting fire.
wtf
(02/05/09 4:51pm)Report
I really enjoy the idea that a harsh sentence is going to deter “brainwashed psychos”. If they are really ‘psychos’, they probably aren’t going to respond to incentives rationally. If that is the case, then harsh penalties probably aren’t going to serve as a deterrent.
Also, a ‘terrorism act’ [sic] is a prank of higher magnitude?
My brain just melted a little bit.
Logic
(02/05/09 5:02pm)Report
Appropriate, tell me you never have blown a stop sign. You could have killed someone crossing the street. Please go to jail for 5 years.
Get Your Facts Straight
(02/05/09 5:06pm)Report
By burning the building not only was she destroying the research facility but sending a message to the researchers that there adversaries are violent.
Its the same thing as the KKK burning a black church.
Crazy sentence!
(02/05/09 5:20pm)Report
Burning a building is wrong, but this is clearly an abuse of the legal system. Domestic terrorism laws were designed to apply to terrorists who try to kill people — not nutty students who set buildings on fire. Those people should go to jail too, but only for arson.
thought
(02/05/09 5:53pm)Report
Yes, she could have killed someone, but come on…how many people do you expect would have been in Agriculture Hall on Y2K New Year’s Eve?
Researcher
(02/05/09 6:09pm)Report
To Thought: Many researchers (especially graduate students) do work holidays, weekends, and nights. Even if it is one, is it justified?
Further, the damage was not simply on a building or a symbol. Much of the research itself was destroyed, destroying the career of at least one researcher, and causing manyh to take huge steps backward. The competitive nature of science (especially biotech at the time) means that many were severely adversely affected.
You can even take it a step further and consider that scientists on campus also bring in significant research dollars to the university, which the university takes half of, so there was significant current and future financial loss from the act above and beyond the buildings.
Also, it is near impossible to tell the implications of lighting a building on fire and many non-target buildings, innocent people, and other research, could have been destroyed.
This was an act of violence and should have been treated as harshly as it was. Peaceful protests are one thing, arson is completely different and needs to be taken very seriously.
lol
(02/05/09 8:08pm)Report
she was lucky that only 1 building burnt down, what if the fire would have spread to other properties? Fire spreads fast, its hard to stop it after it starts. Also, it doesn’t matter how many people would have been in the building or not on Y2K, what matters is that firefighters still had to risk their lives and enter the building anyway. 21 years is perfectly enough, it is a domestic terrorism. So when an international terrorist spends his entire life in guantanamo bay is OK, but sentencing an American with domestic terrorism act is harsh? Get real people, she is a psycho! Treat every person the same way. How old was she? 37? You call that not a psycho? Anyone who acts like that in such age, deserves a harsh sentence. She wasn’t 19, she was 37. Now those activists groups (incl. PETA) will think twice before doing something that serious. You want to protest, go out on the street with signs, don’t burn down buildings.
Goodie
(02/05/09 10:12pm)Report
Goodie Goodie Gumdrops,
Thank you again to all of the police who found this wack job last year so she can spend almost the next quarter century thinking “boy that was dumb”.
Wqzzipaeri
(02/05/09 10:37pm)Report
“Freedom fighters might not always win, but they’re always right.” – Molly Ivins
Huh??
(02/06/09 6:42am)Report
How the hell is she a freedom fighter? Freedom from what, a chance to end third world hunger.
Lance
(02/06/09 8:39am)Report
Another proud moment in liberal history. I congratulate the judge, 20 years is a fitting sentence.
hiway39
(02/06/09 8:53am)Report
MARIE gets 20, MONSANTO gets 0. Go figure!
Kazmo
(02/06/09 11:05am)Report
How embarrassing for her to tell her cell mates that she did it to prevent mutated potatoes. 22 years to protect the spud, what an idiot!!!!
Teeny Weeny Lawyer Guy
(02/06/09 11:22am)Report
“How the hell is she going to come up with 4.1 mil??”
Answer: She will not. Gov will sieze whatever they can overtime, the remainder will simply become uncollectable.
Huh??
(02/06/09 2:10pm)Report
And what crime did montsanto committ?
Robert Fredericks
(02/06/09 5:15pm)Report
As an alum from the 1960 when other terrorist practices (Obama’s friend Bill Ayres for one), I’m glad to see justice here.
lol
(02/06/09 10:29pm)Report
Um…genetic potatoes? Whaaaaat? lol
Put “1” in the potato column
Paul
(02/07/09 9:59am)Report
“LOGIC” fails.
You analogy is faulty on many levels. I don’t know anyone who has willingly and without looking “blown past a stop sign.” There is a significant and meaningful difference between an accident caused by careless or poor driving, and a willful act of destruction.
Stupid
(02/07/09 3:20pm)Report
“Protesting genetically engineered crops gets you terrorism charges… god help us all.”
If your definition of “protest” involves burning down buildings, then god help you.
Don't try to torch my University, asshole.
(02/08/09 7:39pm)Report
I can’t believe that people are trying to paint this as some kind of abuse of human rights on the scale of Guantanamo. Don’t try to connect holding people indefinitely without charging them with a crime or having evidence that they did anything with what happened here. This woman was a terrorist — she was using fear to try to stifle an ideology she was opposed to. For that matter, the kind of food research she was so stupidly opposed to is what’s been keeping the world fed for the past 50 years… recommend a quick Googling of “Green Revolution” for the unitiated.
This woman was caught red-handed doing a terrible thing. She got hit big time. I applaud the $4 million dollar judgment against her — like an above poster suggested, she won’t be able to profit off memoirs, speakers’ fees, or made-for-TV movies.
Some people commenting here are giving liberals a bad name. I don’t care who you are, when someone doesn’t agree with someone else and uses violence and destruction to stop them, they deserve to be punished. They deserve a fair trial and every benefit of the Constitution, but when they’re found guilty in a fair court this is exactly the outcome necessary.