Informant Tracking
This page lists whereabouts and status of informants and ‘snitches’ who are cooperating with, or working for, the State in effort to monitor and/or repress ecological resistance movements. Sadly, the names on this list are people who can never be trusted again in activist circles or resistance movements.
We aim to present short summaries of them, consolidated in a single location. There is very likely more information, including additional photos, to be found for each through online search engines and resources designed to gather personal information on people. We only post information on this page that can be verified to the greatest extent possible through public documents—in most cases, their plea agreements.
Types of Informants Listed:
Undercover Agent/Infiltrator: A law enforcement officer who uses an assumed name or fake identity to infiltrate a movement or organization to gather information or evidence. In political infiltration cases, an agent will typically pose as a sympathizer to a particular organization, gain the trust of its key members and then use this access to gather confidential information to pass on to the investigative agency. A secondary objective may be to lay the groundwork for a separate investigation. Undercover agents typically concoct a cover story as detailed as the assignment requires as well as a basic biography and plausible story covering past and present activities.
Informant: Individuals who are not employed as law enforcement agents who provide law enforcement agents with information, often in exchange for money. An informant ordinarily has previous involvement in – and more intimate knowledge of – the movement or organization that the agents are investigating.
Cooperating Witness: Similar to informants, except that cooperating witnesses usually agree to ‘flip’ or ‘snitch’ after being threatened with prosecution. Cooperating witnesses will testify in court in exchange for lesser or no charges filed against them.
Law enforcement recruits informants and cooperating witnesses from the ranks of people already active within the movements or organizations being targeted. The government often threatens these individuals with charges carrying massive jail time, offering to not file charges in exchange for a promise to inform on others in the movement. Undercover agents, on the other hand, use false pretenses from the beginning of their association with any movement or organization.
The U.S.-based informants are listed by release date (when applicable) or date of cooperation from least to most recent, while the International informants are listed in alphabetical order because to our knowledge none have served time.
US Informants
Justin Clayton Samuel (DOB: Dec. 31, 1978) of Snohomish, Washington; Height: 6’ 0″. Weight: ~165 lbs. Hair: brown. Eyes: hazel. Race: white
Informant Status: Testified against Peter Young on charges related to cutting fences and liberating mink from a series of fur farms in October 1997.
Current Information: He was released on 11-28-2001. As of 2010, he had gone into the computer security field, working for Firefox, and was a PhD student at UC Berkeley. His school department profile: www.eecs.berkeley.edu/~jsamuel His twitter: http://twitter.com/#!/jstnsml
“Anna” (DOB ~1986, according to court testimony) of Miami, Florida, when she started working for the Feds; Height: approximately 5’4’’
“Anna” photos from 2004-2005
Informant Status: Worked as an informant in the anarchist/environmental/animal rights movements since at least 2003 (during the FTAA protests in Miami). She attended various gatherings, meetings and protests up until January 2006 when Eric McDavid, Lauren Weiner, and Zachary Jenson were arrested in Auburn, CA, and charged with conspiracy to destroy public and private property. During her time with the trio, Anna wore a wire, had a recording device in her car, possibly her bag, and the house they were living in (that the Feds paid for) was wired. She reported back to the feds about anyone and everyone she came into contact with—not just Eric, Zach and Lauren. The criminal complaint against Eric states that Anna was involved in the prosecution of at least 12 other “anarchist” cases. According to her testimony at Eric McDavid’s trial, she was recruited by the FBI after going “undercover” to write a paper for a class about the FTAA protests. During her time as an informant, she reported on people attending Crimethinc gatherings, the DNC, the RNC, BioDev in Philly, the G8, Feral Visions and more. Her work entrapping Eric McDavid landed him in prison for a term of almost 20 years. After documents showing signs of entrapment, withheld by prosecution during the trial, were revealed McDavid was released from prison.
For more insight into Anna, you can read court transcripts of her testimony at Eric’s trial at: supporteric.org
Zach Jensen 2004
Zachary Jensen (DOB: ~1986) of Monroe, Washington
Informant Status: Arrested on January 13, 2006, along with Eric McDavid and Lauren Weiner and charged with a single count of conspiracy to destroy by arson or explosives public and private property. His arrest was the direct result of a paid FBI informant, known as “Anna,” who spent over a year and a half befriending and entrapping the trio. Zach pleaded guilty to a lesser charge on July 18, 2006, and was released on bail later that month. The terms of his plea agreement required full cooperation with the government against Eric McDavid at trial, as well as in any and all other investigations in which the government deemed him useful. Zach received time served (which amounted to about 6 months) at his sentencing on December 4, 2008. His supervised release expired in December 2011.
Current Information: Zach has a medium build, with brown hair and brown eyes. He stands at about 5’5’’. His last known place of residence was Plainfield, VT. He fancies himself a writer and claimed to have been working on a book about his experiences (and warning others against following a similar path) during the time of his sentencing hearing. He has also claimed an interest in Buddhism, yoga and other “spiritual” pursuits. He is normally withdrawn and quiet and eager to please whatever company he might be keeping.
Lauren Weiner
Lauren Weiner (DOB: ~1986) of Pound Ridge, New York
Informant Status: Arrested on January 13, 2006, along with Eric McDavid and Zachary Jenson. She was charged with a single count of conspiracy to destroy by arson or explosives public and private property. Her arrest was the direct result of a paid FBI informant, known as “Anna,” who spent over a year and half befriending and entrapping the trio. Lauren was released on bond in early February 2006 and later pleaded guilty to a lesser charge on May 30, 2006. However, there is evidence that Lauren was cooperating with the government months before the plea agreement was signed. The terms of her plea agreement required full cooperation with the government against Eric McDavid at trial, as well as in any and all other investigations in which the government deemed her useful. Lauren received time served (which amounted to about 3 weeks) at her sentencing on December 11, 2008. Her supervised release expired in December 2011.
Current Information: Lauren has a heavy build, with brown hair and brown eyes. She stands at about 5’1’’. Her last known place of residence was Winooski, VT. Lauren attended art school and is quite skilled in pottery and various other art forms. She is outspoken and often lies or engages in hyperbolic speech to impress those around her. Stories have surfaced about her attempting to attend fundraisers for Green Scare defendants after her release on bond. Lauren Weiner is known to be in and about Burlington, Vermont. She has been interacting with the local arts scene and with a music venue, the Radio Bean.
Angela “Angie” Marie Cesario (DOB ~1979)
From top to bottom: Angie, Jeremy, Jake. (not recent)
Informant Status: Took a cooperating plea deal for a 2001 firebombing of logging and cement trucks in Oregon, pointing the finger at Tre Arrow to reduce her sentence. This was a departure from earlier testimonies, when both Cesario and Rosenbloom did not name Arrow as the instigator, but Jake Sherman. All three named Arrow in exchange for sentences of 41 months. She was released on 12-22-2006.
Current Information: None at this time.
Jeremy David Rosenbloom (DOB ~1977)
Informant Status: took a cooperating plea deal, pointing the finger at Tre Arrow to reduce the sentence. This was a departure from earlier testimonies, when both Cesario and Rosenbloom did not name Arrow as the instigator, but Jake Sherman. All three named Arrow in exchange for sentences of 41 months. He was released on 12-22-2006.
Current Information: None at this time.
Jacob “Jake” David Bardwell Sherman (DOB ~1982) of Portland, Oregon
Informant Status: Convicted of arson of logging trucks and a front-end loader near Eagle Creek in 2001. Sherman “immediately began to cooperate” with investigators after his arrest, according to court documents, naming three others who had participated in the arsons: Tre Arrow, Angela Marie Cesario and Jeremy David Rosenbloom, and pegging Arrow as the ringleader in exchange for a sentence of 41 months.
Sherman was boastful and told several girlfriends (two of whom also provided information to the government), in detail, his version of the events that took place that night. Sherman had also not been an especially careful saboteur. His mother’s vehicle smelled of gasoline and he dumped his clothes in the trash bin when he returned that night at 2:00 am, asking his brother to tell his parents that he had returned home at 10:30 pm. Sherman’s father contacted the FBI telling them he believed his son was involved in the arson.
Current Information: Employed by Portland State University in a sustainability program (7/11/2015)
Darren Thurston
Darren Todd Thurston aka “Goat,” (DOB: ~1970) of Canada
Informant Status: Thurston was charged with conspiracy to commit arson and destruction of an energy facility east of Bend, OR, in 1999. Thurston was given a sentence of 37 months in prison after took a cooperating plea agreement to conspiracy and arson in the 2001 fire at the Litchfield, CA, U.S. Bureau of Land Management wild horse corrals informing on several individuals.
Thurston and his wife Karen, 2016
Current Information: He was released on 8-14-2008. As of summer 2010, he was running his own computer security firm (http://www.hard-mac.com/blog/) out of Canada. He married Karen Mirsky in 2016. He goes by “rad_boy” and “hard_mac”.
Stephanie Fultz, mugshot
Stephanie Lynne Fultz (DOB ~1980)
Informant Status: Cooperated with the authorities and testified against Marius Mason (formerly Marie) and Jesse Waters after being charged with participating in one ELF action with Mason and Ambrose. In 2009, Fultz was placed on probation for two years and ordered to perform 100 hours of community service.
Current Information: None at this time.
Aren Burthwick, mugshot
Aren Bernard Burthwick (DOB ~1980)
Informant Status: Cooperated with the authorities and testified against Marius Mason (formerly Marie) after being charged with participating in one action with Mason and Ambrose. Burthwick was sentenced to 14 months in 2009.
Current Information: In November of 2017 HEAL records announced that Aren has been spotted playing southeastern Michigan band, Nuke. He also has an updated profile on metal-archives.org.
Trapper James Zuehlke (DOB: April 14, 1975), of Council Bluffs, Iowa
Trapper Zuehlke
Informant Status: To evade his own legal issues, he provided information in 2010 on his brother Walter Bond’s whereabouts and criminal activity, including going out of his way to trick Walter into going to the location where he was arrested. While this is not a case of someone in the movement informing, it does illustrate another example of how one may become an informant.
Current Information: He is last known to live with wife and three children in Council Bluffs, Iowa, and be employed at Jim Hawk Truck Trailers.
Lacey Phillabaum (DOB: ~1975) of Spokane, Washington
Lacey Phillabaum
Informant Status: Phillabaum took a cooperating plea agreement, pleaded guilty to conspiracy, arson, and use of a destructive device at the University of Washington’s Center for Urban Horticulture in 2001. The university spent $7.2 million to rebuild the center. She is very intelligent, calculated and manipulative. Phillabaum is a former Earth First! Journal editor, known for her role as the narrator of the underground documentary film Breaking the Spell, which advocates property damage and examines the 1999 Seattle WTO riots from the perspective of anarchists in Eugene, OR. In 2005 she moved to Charlottesville, VA, to take a reporting position at C-Ville Weekly. She turned herself in to federal agents sometime around early 2006. In 2008, Phillabaum was sentenced to three years in federal prison and three years probation.
Current Information: She was released on 4-21-2010 and is currently out after transitioning via a halfway house in Spokane, WA. She is thought to be living at her parents’ house in Phoenix, AZ, and is reportedly seeking work as a paralegal.
Sarah “Kendall” Tankersley
Sarah “Kendall” Harvey Tankersley (DOB: ~1977) of Ohio
Informant Status: Arrested while living in Flagstaff, AZ, charged with arson and attempted arson of US Forest Industries in Medford. Kendall received a 3-year, 10-month sentence. Judge Ann Aiken sentenced Tankersley to five months less than she agreed to when she took a cooperating plea agreement to arson at the US Forest Industry’s office in Medford in 1998.
Current Information: She was preparing for medical school when she pleaded, and attended Humboldt State and graduated with molecular biology degree in 2004 so may be working in either field. She was released from prison on 9-17-2010.
Suzanne Nicole Savoie aka “India,” (DOB: ~1977) of Applegate, Oregon
Suzanne Savoie
Informant Status: Charged with arson at Superior Lumber Co., in Glendale, OR, she was sentenced to more than 51 months in prison for her role in two arsons. She turned herself in to FBI agents in mid-January 2006. Savoie made statements against Nathan Block and Joyanna Zacher in her plea agreement and was given a sentence only 8 months less than expected because of her cooperation with investigators.
Current Information: Released in March 2011, living with her husband in the Applegate Valley of southern Oregon. She attended the April 2011 screening of “If a Tree Falls” in Ashland and was heckled and harassed during and after the showing. She claims her “innocence” as a reluctant federal informant, and her husband has attempted to rejoin the activist community. She hosted a pollinators workshop on April 16 in Grants Pass, Oregon. Find out more about Savoie on the “about us” page of the Klamath-Siskiyou Native Seeds website.
William “Billy” Jensen Cottrell (DOB: 1980) of Gainesville, Florida
Billy Cottrell
Informant Status: A former Ph.D. candidate at the California Institute of Technology who was convicted in April 2005 of conspiracy and arson associated with the 2003 destruction of eight sport utility vehicles and a Hummer dealership in the name of the Earth Liberation Front (ELF). He named Tyler Johnson as the”mastermind” behind the arsons. He was sentenced to eight years in federal prison on arson charges and ordered to pay $3.5 million in restitution. His lawyers appealed the verdict and sentence on account that he has Asperger’s syndrome and it was upheld 2/3 of the way through his sentence.
Current Information: He was released August 16, 2011, and is last known to be living in Florida.
Informant Status: Charged with an ELF action at Rhinelander that damaged GE research trees and equipment valued at $500,000. Ellringer’s cooperation led the three other defendants to plead guilty to the felony charge. (Source)
Current Information: He was released from jail in 2009 and returned to Eau Claire
Ian Wallace (DOB: ~1981) Formerly of the Twin Cities and pursuing a Post-Doctorate at Harvard in Human Evolutionary Biology (Source)(Source)(accessed 5/12/2017)
Informant Status: Signed a cooperating plea agreement, resulting in a sentence of three years in prison, beginning June 1, 2009, for his role in placing two failed firebombs at US Forest Service buildings where GE tree research was being conducted on the campus of Michigan Tech University in 2001. Wallace and another traveled from Minneapolis to upper Michigan for the action, according to the plea agreement. He faced a maximum of 10 years in prison.
Wallace also admitted involvement in three other acts in the plea agreement: two in Saint Paul—sabotage of a building and vehicles at a US Forest Service research station in 2000 (loss $25,186) and arson of the construction site of what is today the Cargill Building for Microbial and Plant Genomics on the University of Minnesota campus (loss $630,000). He also admitted to involvement and named three other activists responsible for the destruction of 500 research GE trees in Rhinelander, WI: Bryan Rivera/Lefey (who took a non-cooperating agreement) and was sentenced to 3 years in prison, Katherine Christianson (who took a cooperating agreement) was sentenced to 2 years, and Daniel McGowan (who took a non-cooperating agreement) and was sentenced to 7 years in prison. See Source.
Current Information: He was released on 01-12-2012.
Nikki Stanford
Nicole “Nikki” Stanford (formerly Viehl) (DOB: ~1990) of Salt Lake City, Utah; Height 5’3″; Weight: 95 lbs
Informant Status: Was subpoenaed to a federal grand jury in 2009 investigating local illegal animal rights activities, mainly fur farm raids in Utah. She was initially going to resist the grand jury along with Jordan Halliday, but later decided to testify and admitted to naming names and vehicles on the stand. She used to be married to former animal liberation prisoner BJ Viehl.
Current Information: She works as a model and at a gun store called Gallenson’s at 166 E 200 South in Salt Lake City.
Daniel “Dan” Kruk (DOB ~1980) of Baltimore, MD; Height: 6’5”. Weight: ~250 lbs. Race: White
Informant Status: Daniel Kruk appeared in federal court in Indianapolis on July 19 2012, to offer a guilty plea and for sentencing for charges relating to an arson at the Republican National Headquarters in Bloomington, IN in 2000. At this hearing, it was disclosed that Kruk has been cooperating with the feds since 2009. Kruk was facing a sentence of up to 5 years and a fine of up to $150,000 in restitution. Because of his cooperation, he received 4 years of probation (no jail time), 2 years of community service (one 8-hour day a month), and a $5000 fine.
Current Information: Kruk is last known to be living in Baltimore and working as a bouncer for Ottobar.
David Agranoff (DOB ~1974) now of Portland, OR
Informant Status: David agreed to become a government informant as part of a plea agreement related to Earth Liberation Front crimes in Bloomington, IN more than 10 prior. According to the prosecution at Kruk’s sentencing hearing, Agranoff began, “negotiating with the state on various issues” in 2009. In January 2012, Agranoff was sentenced to 1 year and 1 day for misprision of a felony (knowing about the commission of a felony and failing to report it to the police). The court recommended he serve his time in a low-security prison camp. He also received 1 year probation.
Current Information: He was transferred to a halfway house in Seattle on 10-15-2012 and was released on 01-03-2013. He is currently residing in the Portland, OR, and runs a blog.
Jennifer Lynn Kolar aka “Diver,” (DOB: ~1973), originally of Spokane, later Seattle, Washington
Informant Status: She turned herself in to federal agents in Washington sometime around early 2006, and took a cooperating agreement pleading guilty to charges in connection with the firebombing at the University of Washington.
Current Information: She was released on 2-01-2013 and lived in Seattle where she worked as a dog trainer at PAWS. For the years prior to arrest, she spent much of her time sailing and racing a yacht, Manta Ray, an Olson 911 SE sail number 45, she co-owns. She was a chair of the Corinthian Yacht Club (CYC) of Seattle Large Boat Racing Fleet. She was often the “computer security expert” for the groups she worked with, so she may be working in that field.
Informant Status: Court records indicate that by spring 2004, Ferguson was wearing a hidden recording device in an effort to bait others into incriminating themselves. He admitted in a cooperating agreement in 2007 that he set fire to the US Forest Service Ranger Station in Detroit, OR, and a government pickup in 1996. He admitted to being granted immunity plus $50,000 for his cooperation, and received 5 years probation. Ferguson searched out others and had them recount experiences while he was wearing a recording device. The recordings provided investigators the evidence that they needed to convict Daniel McGowan, Jonathan Paul, Joyanna Zacher and Nathan Block (who all received sentences of 5-7 years). Ferguson wore the hidden recorder to the 2005 annual Earth First! gathering, to the Public Interest Environmental Law Conference at the University of Oregon, and to meetings with six of his former partners, by then scattered across the country. FBI and Forest service special agents were possibly tracking him since 1996, when an accomplice at the Detriot Ranger station fire left a Slingshot organizer phone book in a local phone booth. Ferguson was under surveillance for nearly 5 years when a roommate assumed he had stolen her truck after an argument, reported it stolen and filed a restraining order against him, putting him further on the police radar. He was using heroin heavily by 2003, when feds contacted Ferguson and lied to him about people within the community linking him to the Romania fire and other arsons. That, ostensibly, is when Ferguson agreed to cooperate. He was never indicted for the over 15 acts of sabotage he admitted and he may have been financially compensated for his cooperation. After testing positive for opiates on 3/29/11, he was incarcerated for violating probation. On 7/14/11, Ferguson was charged in state court with manufacture, delivery, possession of heroin, cocaine, methadone, and others; child neglect and child endangerment. For this violation, Ferguson received 22 months in prison (the bottom end of range), and Judge Ann Aiken made his sentence concurrent (meaning he will serve both sentences at the same time).
Current Information: He was released on 5/29/13. Prior to his arrest he is believed to have resided in an Edgewood Center condo (paid for in full by the FBI) located on 40th and Donald in Eugene, Oregon which he may return to. He may be easily recognized by a pentagram tattoo on his forehead.
Briana Waters (DOB: ~1975), formerly of Oakland, California
Current Information: She has a young daughter and was working as a violin teacher prior to arrest. She was scheduled to be released from her Sacramento, CA, halfway house on 06-27-2013.
Chelsea Gerlach
Chelsea Dawn Gerlach (DOB: 1977) of Sweet Home, and later Eugene, Oregon
Informant Status: Sentenced to 9 years for arson at Childers Meat Co. in Eugene; arson at a Boise Cascade office in Monmouth, OR; toppling of a Bonneville Power Administration tower; arson at the Eugene Police Department West University Public Safety Station; attempted arson at Jefferson Poplar Farms in Clatskanie. Gerlach pled guilty in a cooperating agreement to conspiracy and arson charges in a string of 20 fires that did $40 million worth of damage in five states, including a 1998 fire at the Vail ski resort in Colorado. After the group disbanded in 2001, Gerlach went underground and became a DJ in Portland, OR. At the time of her arrest, she was selling drugs in Portland with her boyfriend Darren Todd Thurston. Thus far, drug charges are not pending with either Gerlach or Thurston. Gerlach was extremely helpful to the prosecution, although she defends herself against being vilified as a snitch and says she cooperated ‘for the movement.’ Gerlach made statements against Nathan Block and Joyanna Zacher. She convinced Thurston to turn informant, unsuccessfully attempting to get Zacher, Block and McGowan to turn as well. She led the prosecution on several field trips to previous arsons and a buried cache of guns, ammunition and fake passports allegedly belonging to William “Avalon” Rodgers. She provided information about herself including self-identifying as good with words and computers in an interview she did from prison in 2007, and previously studied at Portland State University to pursue a graduate degree in divinity.
Current Information: She was released from a halfway house in Seattle in late 2013 and was reported to be working at her brother’s business in Eugene, The Divine Cupcake.
Frank Brian Ambrose (DOB: ~1975), formerly of Bloomington, Indiana
Informant Status: Ambrose pleaded guilty in a cooperating agreement to conspiring to set a fire and explosion that caused more than $1 million in damage to the offices of Michigan State University’s Agriculture Biotechnology Support Project on New Year’s Eve 1999. Ambrose became a paid FBI informant after his arrest (for disposing of evidence of actions in a dumpster that were found and law enforcement notified). Ambrose has provided information on 15 other people allegedly involved in ELF/ALF actions, including ex-wife Marius Mason (formerly Marie). Court documents reveal that Ambrose was being used by the FBI not only to gather information on ELF/ALF activities but general movement organizing as well (specifically organizing against I-69 and Cincinnati Earth First! organizing). He “traveled outside of Michigan seven times at the FBI’s direction, often working extremely late hours; he made repeated trips from Detroit to Grand Rapids; he made 178 consensual recordings of telephone conversations and in-person meetings with investigative targets; and he participated in lengthy interviews with the FBI’s Behavioral Analysis Unit and otherwise assisted the FBI’s efforts to improve its intelligence-gathering protocols related to, and its understanding of, underground environmental and animal-rights extremist groups and movements.”
In sum, his cooperation with investigators after his arrest has been substantial and rather extraordinary. He was sentenced to 9 years in prison in 2008. He also received a lifetime of supervisory release after prison and was ordered to pay $3.7 million in restitution to the University and for other sabotaged sites. There is speculation of an additional informant in Ambrose’s case (listed as another confidential source in official documents). Confirmation and details on the identity of this person are currently pending, though they may refer to Liam Mulholland.
Current Information: He was released from a halfway house in DC (rather than in the Midwest) in December 2013.
Liam Mulholland of Indianapolis, Indiana
Informant Status: Liam was involved in environmental activism and animal rights in the late 1990s and 2002–2004 in Indiana. He entered a plea agreement to carrying out an ELF arson in Ann Arbor, Michigan in 2003 and cooperated fully with the federal government. He claimed involvement in several more ELF and ALF actions that took place between 2002–2003, and provided the feds with details of the actions, the names of the other activists with whom he supposedly carried out these actions, as well as where and how they traveled, where and when they planned and discussed their actions, what they purchased for the actions, how they disposed of the purchased items, and how they carried out each action.
In 2008, Liam was accused of having cooperated with the FBI, re-emerging on the activist scene in 2007–2008 and attempting to reignite old friendships and networks after knowingly engaging in secret discussions with the FBI. Liam publicly denied these claims [scroll down], but his recent plea agreement and Government Sentencing Memorandum show that, despite his claims, he has in fact been cooperating. On May 5, 2014, he was sentenced to 1 day in jail, time served, and 2 years’ supervised probation.
Current Information: In the past decade, Mulholland obtained his law degree, married, and has been employed in Indiana.
Stanislas “Stan” Gregory Meyerhoff, also went by “Jack” (DOB: ~1977) of Charlottesville, Virginia
Stan Meyerhoff
Informant Status: Meyerhoff was the first of the group called “The Family” to be sentenced, and the first to snitch once arrested. Charged with May 1999 arson at Childers Meat Co. in Eugene; 1999 arson at Boise Cascade office in Monmouth, OR; toppling of a Bonneville Power Administration tower; arson at the Eugene Police Department West University Public Safety Station; arson at Superior Lumber Co., in Glendale, OR; arson of sport utility vehicles at a Eugene car dealership; arson of Jefferson Poplar Farms in Clatskanie. He admitted guilt in his first hearing in front of an arraignment judge. Meyerhoff eventually pleaded guilty in a cooperating agreement to conspiracy and arson charges in a string of 20 fires that did $40 million worth of damage in five states, including a 1998 fire at the Vail ski resort in Colorado. Meyerhoff, who admitted to fashioning the devices to start the fires, was sentenced to 13 years in prison. After the group disbanded in 2001, Meyerhoff enrolled in college in Virginia, where he studied engineering.
Current Information: He was released from a halfway house in Seattle on 7/8/15.
Amy Upham and Selena Kate Lloyd (Lloyd is ~39 years old) of Buffalo, NY
Amy Upham
Selena Lloyd
Informant Status: Upham and Lloyd were tenants in the apartment above Burning Books, a book store in Buffalo, New York. They told agents from the FBI’s Buffalo office that the shop’s owners—Leslie James Pickering, Theresa Baker, and Nate Buckley—were inciting violence in workshops and talks at Burning Books. As a result, the FBI initiated two years of regular surveillance of the shop and Pickering and Baker’s home. This was exacerbated by the fact that Pickering was a former spokesperson for the North American Earth Liberation Front Press Office. The surveillance ultimately embraced a potential “local eco-terrorist cell” (quote from FBI files) of nine locals: Pickering, Baker, Buckley, and six unnamed others. Lloyd appears to have a prior relationship with the FBI and a history of disrupting organizations and projects in Moscow, Idaho, as well as Buffalo.
Current Information: Upham has relocated to the Asheville, NC, area; Lloyd’s whereabouts are unknown. Both informants have reportedly struggled with mental illness, and Upham has described Lloyd as abusive and potentially dangerous.
Kevin Tubbs
Kevin Tubbs (DOB: ~1969), originally from Nebraska, but had been living in Springfield, Oregon
Informant Status: Tubbs attended Humboldt State University and was once editor of the Earth First! Journal. Tubbs cooperated three weeks after his arrest. His cooperation was substantial, after he learned of three snitches against him: Ferguson, Meyerhoff and Kolar—in that order. Tubbs’ testimony was sufficient enough to get Jonathan Paul indicted. Tubbs was an animal rights activist charged with arson of Oakridge Ranger Station; arson of Cavel West horse slaughterhouse in Redmond, OR, on July 21, 1997; attempted arson at US Forest Industries in Medford, OR, in December 1998; arson at Childers Meat Co., in Eugene; Sept. 6, 2000, arson at the Eugene Police Department West University Public Safety Station; Jan. 2, 2001, arson at Superior Lumber Co., in Glendale, OR; using a destructive device to set fire to sport utility vehicles at a Eugene, OR, car dealership in March 2001; arson at Jefferson Poplar Farms in Clatskanie, OR, in May 2001. In 2007, he was sentenced to nearly 12 years and 7 months in prison with 3 years supervised release.
Current Information: Released on 11-23-16 after transitioning via a Kansas City halfway house.
Heath Harmon (DOB ~1971), of the Fort Berthold Reservation in North Dakota
Harmon reported that his work for the FBI involved monitoring the Standing Rock camps for evidence of “bomb-making materials, stuff like that.” Asked what he discovered, Harmon made no mention of protesters harboring dangerous weapons, but he acknowledged storing his own weapon in a trailer at the water protectors’ Rosebud Camp: the same .38 revolver Fallis is accused of firing. In an interview with the Mandan Police Department the day of her arrest, he claimed the gun had been stolen two to three weeks prior. However, he changed his story when talking to the ATF and BCI, saying that he’d last seen the gun a couple of days before the incident.
Corporate Spies
Paul T. McComb aka “Thomas Jones” (DOB: ~1987) of California
Informant Status: Paul McComb is a SeaWorld employee who posed for years as a PETA activist (calling himself Thomas Jones) in an attempt to infiltrate animal rights protests and events linked to the 2013 SeaWorld documentary Blackfish. McComb also used social media to spy on and instigate illegal activity including draining whale tanks at Sea World. PETA filed a lawsuit seeking further information about the Pasadena police department’s decision to release McComb after arresting him during a protest at the January 2014 Rose Parade, which first sparked suspicion among PETA members. The suit for failing to produce documents under a Freedom of Information Act request might show why McComb was released when PETA members were not.
Current Information: After news of his infiltration broke, SeaWorld initially defended their actions, then put McComb on paid leave in July 2015.
Mary Lou Sapone/McFate (DOB: ~1946) formerly of Pennsylvania; last known to live in Sarasota, Florida; Heavyset with curly reddish hair
Informant Status: In the late 80’s, private security firm Perceptions International hired Mary Lou to infiltrate the anti-vivisection campaign against U.S. Surgical. Sapone later convinced an activist to place a bomb outside of the office of U.S. Surgical, which the activist was convicted of and served a year in prison for. Mary Lou was known to attend almost every meeting, get to know all of the key people in the movement milking them for information, travel around the country to most protests and conferences, as well as advocate taking illegal or violent action. In 1998, security firm Beckett Brown International retained Mary Lou, who then recruited a paid operative in Louisiana to infiltrate the environmental group CLEAN (Calcasieu League for Environmental Action Now). CLEAN was a local group working with Greenpeace in the stretch of Louisiana dubbed “Cancer Alley,” organizing against various forms of industry pollution.
A 2008 investigation by Mother Jones magazine (There’s Something about Mary) revealed that Mary Lou—using her maiden name McFate—had been spying since the mid ’90s on gun control groups, paid for by the National Rifle Association. Among other signs of something amiss, she had a tendency to drop in and out of contact, explaining away her absences by saying she had been vacationing on cruises. When occasionally asked to talk to the media about gun issues, she adamantly refused. Sapone formed her own intelligence-gathering business, which at one point was called Strategic Solutions Group LLC, maintained an office in Washington, DC, and operated in the late 1990s and early 2000s. The firm also employed her daughter Shelley McGonnigal, her son Sean McFate, and his wife, Montgomery McFate who “does all the analytic reports, forecasting, and white papers.” According to an old version of Montgomery’s resume, the company specialized in “domestic and internal opposition research” and “special investigations.”
Current Information: In Sarasota, Florida, she headed the local chapter of the Daughters of the American Revolution, served as a substitute teacher at a local military academy, and once joined a coalition of residents who fought to save a 112-acre forest from development.
International Informants:
Additional information on all of the UK informants may be found via the Activist Security collective. The same organization has also published a few security guides.
Informant Status: A serving Metropolitan police officer who spent five years infiltrating environmental groups, including Reclaim the Streets, between 1995 and 2000. During his time undercover, when he is said to have become a key organiser, Boyling met a 28-year-old woman and began a relationship with her. He later disappeared from her life. It was only when he reappeared a year later that he told the woman he was a police officer. They later married and had two children but divorced two years ago.
Current Information: None at this time.
Informant Status: On the 12th of December 2010 a undercover agent working for the Landeskriminalamt (LKA) Baden-Württemberg was uncovered in Heidelberg, Germany. Undercover, he used email addresses simonbrenner@ymail.com and californication@riseup.net, the latter has already been blocked. Under the user name ‘californiaction’ he also wrote articles on Indymedia. From November of 2009 – November of 2010, he infiltrated groups and actions including SDS, Umzingelung des AKW Biblis, blockades against the fascist protest in Berlin, Campus Camp in Heidelberg, anti education cuts protest in Heidelberg, a direct action climbing workshop, blockades against the fascist protest in Sinsheim-Hoffenheim, the NoBorder Camp in Brussels, antifascist protests in Rastatt and Rheinmünster-Söllingen against the fascist centre „Rössle,“ protests against the nuclear waste transport and the ‘south blockade’ („Südblockade“), antifascist protests against the hero memorial of Heidelberg on the ‘honor graveyard’ („Ehrenfriedhof“) and the Critical Mass Action in Heidelberg. After being recognized by an acquaintance and confronted, he admitted that he gave reports to his superiors in Stuttgart every two weeks, as well as over the phone with the Heidelberger state security division for follow up assessments of political actions. He also self-confessed that he was responsible for the raiding of a flat of a comrade as well as the enormous police presence at the Heidelberger “Ehrenfriedhof” during the protests against the hero memorial.
John Dines undercover in the early 1990s
John Dines a.k.a. “John Barker” of the UK
Informant Status: John Dines posed as an environmental activist between 1987 and 1992, while working as an undercover sergeant in the Metropolitan police’s special branch feeding intelligence to his handlers in a secret unit called the Special Demonstration Squad (SDS). During this time, he had a two-year relationship with an activist. He was one of many spies who stole the identities of dead children to make his alter ego more credible. By the summer of 1991, as part of an exit strategy, Dines began exhibiting symptoms of a mental breakdown.
It was not until 2010, after almost two decades of research, that his former girlfriend found out for sure that the man she had loved was a police spy. After locating a copy of his marriage certificate she states, “What hit me like a ton of bricks is that he listed his occupation as a police officer…What had once seemed like heart-wrenching stories in these letters, disclosures that made me really worried about his wellbeing, were completely false. That is manipulation. It is abuse.”
Current Information: He is believed to have returned to work at Scotland Yard, however, no other details are known at this time.
Matthew Gibbons
Matthew Gibbons of the UK
Robert Steven Gilchrist (DOB: 25 October 1968), New Zealand/Aotearoa.
Rob Gilchrist
Informant Status: In September 1996 Rob Gilchrist was fired from his job selling door hardware. He was charged with attempting to defraud the company he worked for, but in June 1997 he was found not guilty “by the skin of his teeth” according to the judge. A year later, as Christchurch activists were preparing for protests against an Asia Pacific Economic Development (APEC) free trade conference, Gilchrist appeared on the scene and started joining local groups. It is likely that he was recruited by the police around the time of his fraud case, well before he approached any activist groups. The anti-APEC groups, led by experienced activists, were suspicious of him but he moved on to other scenes, eventually befriending local unemployed rights and anarchist activists. By early 2000 he was involved in animal rights activists and traveling up and down the country as part of a network of anti-capitalist groups. Over the next eight years he was a police informant active in animal rights, environmental and anarchist groups.
Through these connections he was able to spy on many other activists in NZ for the police. He also provided the police information on the whereabouts of many Maori, anarchist and environmental activists who were raided and imprisoned during Operation 8. Rob is also known to have perpetrated sexual abuse on a number of occasions.
Additional detailed information on who he was spying on, what information he was gathering and how he was caught:
http://www.converge.org.nz/abc/pr38-180b.htm
http://www.converge.org.nz/abc/pr38-180c.htm
Current Information: Rob is known to be currently living in the Waltham area of Christchurch. He is suing the police for mental pain caused during his employ with them.
“Mark Jacobs” or “Marco” of the UK; Height: Over 6′Informant Status: Acted as a campaigner inside anti-globalisation and anarchist groups for four years. He was first noticed in activists’ gatherings in Brighton in March 2005 and became a regular face at meetings of Dissent!, the network mobilising protesters for the G8 summit at Gleneagles in July. In 2006, he moved to Cardiff to monitor the activities of an anarchist group as well as the Rising Tide Network. Former friends said he traveled with UK activists to protest against the G8 in Heligendam, Germany, in 2007. Jacobs, like both the other male undercover officers (Jim Boyling and Mark Kennedy) exposed by the Guardian, has been accused of having an affair while infiltrating a group. By 2009, there was enough suspicion that he was an informant that he was no longer welcome in many circles and appears to have moved out of the area.
Current Information: None at this time.
Mark Jenner
Mark Jenner a.k.a. “Mark Cassidy” of the UK
Informant Status: Jenner was an undercover police officer in the Metropolitan police’s Special Demonstration Squad (SDS), one of two units that specialised in infiltrating protest groups. He pretended to be a leftwing activist from 1994 to 2000, sharing a flat with an activist girlfriend for four years despite being married in his real life. The activist now understands she inadvertently provided “an excellent cover story,” helping persuade other activists he was a genuine person. Jenner disentangled himself from the deployment in 2000, disappearing suddenly from his faux girlfriend’s flat after months of pretending to suffer from depression. “This is not about just a lying boyfriend or a boyfriend who has cheated on you,” she said. “It is about a fictional character who was created by the state and funded by taxpayers’ money.”
Current Information: He is believed to have returned to work at Scotland Yard, however, no other details are known at this time.
Toby Kendall
Toby Kendall aka Ken Tobias of the UK
Informant Status: Acted as an informant from 2003-2010 [see chronology]. He had at least three relationships with female activists and sued the Met for emotional trauma resulting from his exposure.
Current Information: After his exposure in October 2010, he is still actively seeking to operate as a private consultant. He appears to be based in the US. His LinkedIn profile lists as an employer US-based “risk managers” Densus Group, for whom, since March 2012 as a consultant. He has several tattoos.
Informant Status: Acted as a spy in London Greenpeace from 1984 to 1988, and he went on to supervise other agents who continued with infiltration of groups such as Reclaim the Streets, along with anti fascist protests, and actions against genetically modified crops—an operation he took part in or supervised over two decades, whilst rising to the rank of Detective Inspector. Bob was also actively involved with many other protest activities including at Molesworth Peace Camp, free festivals, and animal rights activities and was even prosecuted at Camberwell Green Magistrates Court for distributing ‘insulting’ leaflets outside a butchers shop. He adopted a false identity to infiltrate leftwing and animal rights groups, said he had the 18-month relationship with a woman, who was not herself involved in political activism, as part of his cover story. He was outed on October 15, 2011.
Current Information: None at this time.
Informant Status: In the 1990s, Mercer involved himself in the anti-roads movement including protests against the M11 in Claremont Road. In 1994, he published the ‘Directory of British Political Organisations,’ which contained personal information and contact details for people he’d met in Earth First! and other ecological direct action campaigns in the early ‘90s. Later, working for Global Open, the same company that employed Mark Kennedy, Paul was actively involved with environmental and animal rights campaigns in Nottingham, including Nottingham Against Incineration and Landfill (NAIL) from 2002-2007. Mercer was publicly exposed for his role in spying on anti-arms trade campaigners, Campaign Against the Arms Trade (CAAT) in 2007. In 2007, Mercer was thrust into the headlines when it was revealed that he had forwarded an email containing legally privileged material from anti-arms trade campaign, CAAT, to arms dealers, BAE. An investigation found that Mercer was working as a security consultant for LigneDeux Associates, a company paid £2,500 a month by BAE to provide information on “threats” to the company.
In his sworn affidavit to the court during the CAAT case, Mercer insisted that “most of my research involves the automated searching of public websites and newsletters,” indeed he claims to have “a good reputation for my ability to rigorously search the Internet.” Nevertheless, he says he has “a wide range of contacts” and “does sometimes receive information from anonymous sources, as do many journalists.” At a meeting organised by think tank Policy Exchange in January he described himself as having spent 29 years trying to “combine an academic study of extra-parliamentary groups with actually going and seeing what happens on protests.” He claimed to have “covered and having been on pretty well every major public order disturbance in London over that period,” including the Poll Tax Riots and Mayday 2001.
Current Information: None at this time.
Adrian Radford
Adrian Radford a.k.a. “Ian Farmer” of the UK
Informant Status: From 2004 to 2007, he supplied his police handlers with detailed information on animal rights activists, mostly associated with SHAC. Radford gave detailed accounts of three actions in which he participated, and even staged a lone action to “prove” he was not an informant. He also disrupted some and prevented others, often by giving the police information that allowed them to warn targets. He often blamed errors on a legitimate activist Gavin Medd-Hall. Four activists who were befriended by Radford were prosecuted in 2009, Gregg Avery, Natasha Avery, Heather Nicholson, and Mel Broughton. Radford was nicknamed “Captain Nancy” because of his flamboyant character and past work as a gay rights activist.
Current Information: He is now based in Gran Canaria.
Rebecca Todd
Rebecca “Becki” Todd of Kent, UK
Current Information: None at this time.
Informant Status: Posed as an environmental activist for five years after surfacing in in 2003 at a protest at Aldermaston, Britain’s nuclear weapons centre. In 2004 she returned to Aldermaston women’s peace camp. The following year, she moved to the student area of Leeds, West Yorkshire, where she became active in environmentalist groups centred around a radical social centre called the Common Place. Watson also took a role in the UK Action Medics Collective. She disappeared from Leeds in 2008.
Current Information: None at this time.
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