Eco-Terrorist Sentenced for Firebombing

By Jack Phillips
Epoch Times Staff
March 21, 2012

The FBI announced the sentencing of a fugitive this week of an alleged ecoterrorist who was on the run for more than a decade.

Justin Solondz, 32, was a member of a group called The Family, which launched a string of attacks on facilities across the northwestern portion of the United States, causing $48 million in damages between 1996 and 2001. They used the names Animal Liberation Front and Earth Liberation Front.

The FBI noted that the group’s most notorious crime was committed in 1998, when it allegedly burned down a ski resort in Colorado, which caused $26 million in damage.

In the time spent on the run, Solondz was arrested in China for manufacturing drugs and was sentenced to prison for three years.

The FBI said he pleaded guilty for firebombing a research center at the University of Washington after “he and The Family mistakenly believed the researcher was genetically altering trees.”Three other members of The Family are still at large, the FBI stated.