<html>
<body>
<font size=3><br>
Judge releases second activist jailed over refusal to testify in
arson<br>
case<br>
By Onell R. Soto<br>
UNION-TRIBUNE STAFF WRITER<br><br>
11:53 a.m. October 12, 2005<br><br>
SAN DIEGO -- A federal judge Wednesday morning ordered the release
of<br>
an animal rights activist she had jailed after he refused to testify<br>
before a grand jury investigating a massive arson fire two years
ago.<br>
David Agranoff is the second activist ordered released within a
week<br>
from federal custody in San Diego. He is expected to be
discharged<br>
from the Metropolitan Correctional Center in downtown San Diego this<br>
afternoon.<br><br>
Judge Irma E. Gonzalez said she didn't think it was likely
that<br>
31-year-old Agranoff, a San Diego resident, was ever going to
testify<br>
before the grand jury and as a result, keeping him in jail would
only<br>
punish him.<br><br>
Agranoff's jailing on a finding of civil contempt was intended to
get<br>
him to testify, not to punish him for not doing so.<br><br>
A prosecutor argued that Agranoff should be jailed at least until
the<br>
end of the year, and asked the judge to fine him $25 a day.<br><br>
The judge sided instead with defense lawyer Jeremy Warren, who
said<br>
it's clear that Agranoff will not cooperate with the grand jury he<br>
believes is violating his First Amendment rights of freedom of
speech<br>
and association.<br><br>
The grand jury is investigating an early morning arson fire
that<br>
caused $50 million damage to an unfinished housing complex in<br>
University City on Aug. 1, 2003.<br><br>
The Earth Liberation Front, a radical environmental group also
known<br>
as ELF, claimed credit for setting the fire in a banner left at the<br>
construction site and in an e-mail to The San Diego
Union-Tribune.<br><br>
The grand jury is also probing a speech in Hillcrest that night
by<br>
sometime ELF spokesman Rodney Coronado, who described how he set
fire<br>
to a Michigan animal testing laboratory in the 1990's, a crime for<br>
which he spent several years in prison.<br><br>
Last week, Gonzalez released activist Danae Kelley, 21, of San
Diego,<br>
after prosecutors lifted immunity from prosecution they had granted<br>
her while seeking her testimony before the same grand jury. Kelley
was<br>
then able to claim her Fifth Amendment rights against incriminating<br>
herself.<br><br>
A third San Diego activist who has refused to testify, Nicole
Fink,<br>
remains in jail.<br><br>
Onell Soto: (619) 293-1280; onell.soto@uniontrib.com<br><br>
<br><br>
<br>
Find this article at:<br>
httpccwwwddsignonsandiegoddcom/news/metrost20051012-1153-bn12activeddhtml<br>
</font><x-sigsep><p></x-sigsep>
<font size=3 color="#FF0000">The Freedom Archives<br>
522 Valencia Street<br>
San Francisco, CA 94110<br>
(415) 863-9977<br>
</font><font size=3>
<a href="http://www.freedomarchives.org/" eudora="autourl">
www.freedomarchives.org</a></font></body>
</html>