THE VIRGINIAN-PILOT
Copyright (c) 1994, Landmark Communications, Inc.
DATE: Wednesday, July 6, 1994 TAG: 9407060416
SECTION: LOCAL PAGE: B4 EDITION: NORTH CAROLINA
SOURCE: BY PERRY PARKS, STAFF WRITER
DATELINE: ELIZABETH CITY LENGTH: Short : 43 lines
Supporters expect a large crowd at the federal courthouse this morning at the sentencing of four peace activists convicted in April of damaging an Air Force jet.
Longtime anti-war protester Philip Berrigan, 70, and three others who hammered on an F-15E Strike Eagle at Seymour Johnson Air Force Base in Goldsboro on Dec. 7 are scheduled to face Judge Terrence W. Boyle at 10 a.m.
Topping a list of supporters expected to be on hand are former U.S. Attorney General Ramsey Clark, who advised Berrigan in April, and Catholic Bishop Thomas Gumbleton of Detroit.
Actor Martin Sheen, who had demonstrated during the foursome's mistrial in February, had planned to come today but probably won't be able to attend, friends said.
Berrigan and his co-defendants, Elizabeth City native John Dear, 34, Lynn Fredriksson, 30, and Bruce Friedrich, 24, each face roughly up to two years in prison, Assistant U.S. Attorney William Webb said Tuesday. All four are from the Baltimore-Washington area.
The defendants have been in custody since their arrest seven months ago.
Dear, Fredriksson and Friedrich each also face contempt of court charges imposed by Boyle after they refused to stop reading a statement that he had ruled irrelevant at the group's original trial Feb. 15.
Their actions spurred a chaotic courtroom demonstration by more than 20 supporters, seven of whom were also held in contempt and six of whom were jailed for several weeks.
The defendants were later retried separately and convicted of criminal damaging.
The group, part of a loose organization called Pax Christi - Spirit of Life Plowshares, admitted to hammering and pouring blood on the plane. They said the act was a symbolic protest against militarism and injustice.
Supporters from along the East Coast and around the country have turned out for hearings related to the case. by CNB