In case you didn't know, Cal Tech is considered by many to be the top engineering school in the country. (Bostonians would argue for MIT, I'm sure.) But IQ and EQ are two entirely different characteristics of a person's mental function.
BTW, think you are safe in your SUV with all eco-terrorists caught? Guess again. The ambulance-chasing lawyers can be found in large numbers trolling for dollars.
- Bill
- USA TodayStudent sentenced to more than 8 years in SUV arsons
LOS ANGELES (AP) — A Caltech physics student convicted of helping to firebomb scores of sport utility vehicles was sentenced to more than eight years in federal prison and ordered to pay $3.5 million in restitution. A federal judge Monday rejected William Jensen Cottrell's plea for leniency.
"There's no way I'd ever be involved in anything like this again," Cottrell said. "I won't ever even jaywalk again."
However, U.S. District Judge Gary Klausner said Cottrell had engaged in domestic terrorism and "we're very, very lucky" that no one was killed in the arson attacks.
Cottrell, 24, was convicted in November of conspiracy to commit arson and seven counts of arson for an August 2003 vandalism spree that damaged and destroyed about 125 SUVs.
Cottrell was acquitted of using a destructive device — Molotov cocktails — in a crime of violence. That was the most serious charge he faced and it carried a sentence of at least 30 years in prison.
Vandals who targeted dealerships and homes in the San Gabriel Valley east of Los Angeles set the vehicles on fire and used spray-paint to deface them with slogans such as "Fat, Lazy Americans," "polluter," "smog machine" and "ELF," an acronym for the Earth Liberation Front, a radical environmental group.
Prosecutors estimated the total damage was about $2.3 million.
Cottrell hung his head as he was sentenced to 100 months in prison.
The judge said he felt sorry for Cottrell, a doctoral candidate in the physics department at the California Institute of Technology in Pasadena.
"What a talent to have wasted," Klausner said. "There's only one person to blame for that, and I'm sure Mr. Cottrell understands that it's him."
Defense lawyers argued that Cottrell had agreed with two friends to spray-paint vehicles, but was surprised when they began to hurl Molotov cocktails.
Federal prosecutors have identified former Caltech students Tyler Johnson and Michie Oe as "fugitive co-conspirators" in the case. It is believed that both have fled the country.
Cottrell was arrested in March 2004 after authorities tracked e-mails that Cottrell, using an alias, sent to the Los Angeles Times. He told the newspaper in the e-mails that he was involved in the SUV attacks and affiliated with the Earth Liberation Front.