Biography
Suzanne Savoie was a member of the Eugene-area Earth Liberation Front cell who participated in actions including the 2001 Superior Lumber Company arson in Glendale, Oregon. She was arrested in Operation Backfire and pleaded guilty in 2006 to 15 charges, cooperating with federal prosecutors. On May 22, 2007, Judge Ann Aiken sentenced her to 51 months (4 years and 3 months) in federal prison.
Operation Backfire was the multi-agency federal investigation that, between 2005 and 2008, prosecuted approximately a dozen members of the small Eugene-area ELF/ALF cell known to investigators as 'The Family,' which had carried out roughly twenty arsons and acts of sabotage in five western states between 1996 and 2001. After the December 2005 arrests, the defendants split into two groups: those who cooperated with the federal government — testifying against their co-defendants in exchange for substantially reduced sentences — and those who did not (Daniel McGowan, Marius Mason, Joyanna Zacher, Nathan Block, Jonathan Paul, Briana Waters, Joseph Dibee, Justin Solondz, Rebecca Rubin, and the late William 'Avalon' Rodgers). This entry is for one of the cooperating defendants. The Earth Liberation Prisoners support network has consistently distinguished between cooperating and non-cooperating defendants, and many in the radical-ecology movement do not consider cooperators political prisoners. They are included here because they served meaningful federal prison time.
Contemporary custody chronology
The Warrior Wind, issue1 (February2006), p3 reports Jonathan Paul’s January17,2006 arrest and says Suzanne Savoie surrendered the following day, January18. It also reports January26 detention/bail hearings and says Paul, Savoie and Daniel McGowan actually obtained conditional pretrial release around those hearings. The newsletter does not establish each person’s exact physical-release day. This earlier detention must not be treated as continuous through a later sentence merely from the arrest date.
Source: The Warrior Wind, issue1, February2006, an advocacy newsletter. Bail orders, future hearings and actual release are distinguished.
