Amul Thapar is another US "bad apple" Judge

U.S. District Judge Amul Thapar.is another "bad apple" US  judge who clearly can not be fair minded and would make my list who cant see strait given the facts in my opinion, along with this nazi-American counterpart who you know must bee one of his buddies mention here as Jeff Theodore who sought, and I am quoting from these 2 news sources here in yellow and orange (2nd article)  .. as there is enough facts here to state my position and argue the case for true justice... as I'll show how true Nazi-American Justice had played out here ... though not all people in the US government officials are this kind of evil... 

Some government officials praised the activists for exposing the facility's weaknesses. But prosecutors declined to show leniency, instead pursing serious felony charges.

because of prosecutor ... Assistant U.S. Attorney Jeff Theodore said they had destroyed the "mystique" of the "Fort Knox of uranium."

These people have been in jail since the incident and according to the appeal process ...
In the meantime, the cases could be appealed, but that process could take 1.5 to two years, defense attorney Bill Quigley said.

FIRST OF ALL THESE PEOPLE MUST BE CLASSIFIED AS "PROTESTERS / ACTIVISTS" who clearly engage in actively going against such governments and there so-called laws to bring attention to the public... it' would be misdemeanor before any honest courthouse, and was originally filed as such...

NOW one can see clearly how the UNITED STATES GOVERNMENT abuses people rights by filing trumped up Felony charges as "Sabotage" was thrown into the mix by the nazi prosecutor in front of his buddy judge who don't even consider who the defendants are and give them no status as working for the public good and welfare in which they exposed how easy it would be to get into the "Fort Knox"of uranium and spend over 2 hours there... waiting to be caught.

The crime here is that they could not talk the legal mumbo jumbo or buy off this judge, as he must be on someone payroll, because he should not be on the people payroll (taxpayers money) if he can not judge fair. Let's face facts if the United States should consider itself blessed by God that these were "Christian" and not Terrorist who saw this unguarded opening into "Fort Knox" of Uranium, as they did the entire country a favor, because I'd bet  that given these same circumstances and a Terrorist HAMMERED ON THE SIDE OF THE HIGHLY ENRICHED URANIUM MATERIALS FACILITY, WHICH STORES MOST OF THE NATIONS BOMB-GRADE URANIUM ...

In Conclusion, to this case, I find fault and abuse of power by the US Government in railroading these innocent protester/activist  who cause the US government great embarrassment. This judge and Prosecutor should come under the full weight of law  ... to such mis justice ... They should be disbarred and find. (As the "fix was on" given statements from the ruling and sentencing)
The bad apple can not even sentence fairly, as 2 of them got 5 years and 1 got 3 years for the same so-called crime. 


... like the Greenpeace activists that were held in Russia... the government was smart enough to pardon such trumped up charge after people spoke out... I urge people to help get a "people pardon" for these 3 activist, as they did with GreenPeace 












Y-12 protesters: Nun sentenced to three years, men receive five  
POSTED AT 9:00 PM FEBRUARY 18, 2014
BY JOHN HUOTARI LEAVE A COMMENT

KNOXVILLE—The three protesters who broke into the Y-12 National Security Complex in July 2012 and splashed human blood and spray-painted slogans on a uranium storage building were sentenced to three to five years in prison on Tuesday.

Megan Rice, an 84-year old Catholic nun who last lived in Washington, D.C., received the shortest sentence. She was sentenced to 35 months, or just under three years. Rice is the oldest of the three anti-nuclear weapons activists. She also has the least extensive criminal history, Judge Amul R. Thapar said during a 4.5-hour sentencing hearing in U.S. District Court in Knoxville on Tuesday afternoon.

The other two protesters, Greg Boertje-Obed and Michael Walli, both were sentenced to 62 months, or a little more than five years. They have more extensive prior records. Boertje-Obed is a 58-year-old house painter from Duluth, Minn., and Walli is a 64-year-old Catholic worker and Vietnam veteran from Washington, D.C. Thapar said Boertje-Obed has 40 arrests and more than 20 convictions, and he has previously served time in prison. So has Walli. He was released on Jan. 5, 2012—about six months before the break-in—after an eight-month federal sentence for an earlier trespassing incident at Y-12

.“What do I do when eight months didn’t deter him?” Thapar asked defense attorney Chris Irwin. “It’s getting worse, not better.”

Thapar struggled to answer the question of how long the defendants should be locked up in order to deter them from repeating their offenses and to discourage others who might engage in similar actions. He was unsatisfied with answers to that question from either the defense or the prosecution. Defense lawyers recommended time served, while the United States recommended longer sentences. But Thapar said the recommended sentences seemed extreme given the circumstances and did not distinguish between saboteurs and peace protesters.

Pictured above are the three anti-nuclear weapons protesters who broke into the Y-12 National Security Complex on July 28, 2012, and vandalized a uranium storage building. From left, they are Michael Walli, Megan Rice, and Greg Boertje-Obed.

“Here, it seems like overkill,” Thapar said of Rice’s recommended sentence. “Six-and-a-half years for Megan Rice? Isn’t it supposed to be sufficient but not greater than necessary?”

Announcing the shorter sentences, the judge cited Rice’s decades of service and Walli’s military history, among other things. And he said he gave similar sentences to Walli and Boertje-Obed to avoid sentencing disparities.

Even while emphasizing the importance of deterrence, though, Thapar acknowledged the good works of the defendants, which have ranged from volunteering in soup kitchens to teaching science in Africa.

“The court can say it is generally distressed to place good people behind bars,” Thapar said. “But, I continue to hold out hope that a significant sentence may deter…and lead (the defendants) back to the political process that they seem to have given up on. Without question, the law does not permit the breaking and entering into the secure facilities of the United States.”

Thapar urged the trio to use the political process and their community of supporters to go Washington, D.C., to try to abolish nuclear weapons.

“Breaking the law is not the answer,” Thapar said.

Irwin, second from left, is pictured with defense attorney Francis Lloyd at the Howard H. Baker Jr. U.S. Courthouse in Knoxville.

But it wasn’t clear that he had convinced the protesters. They and their supporters continued to insist that the nuclear weapons work being done at Y-12 violates international law.

“I make no apologies,” Walli told Thapar. “I am not remorseful. I would do it again.”

“We had to come to this facility, to call for its transformation,” Rice said.

All the sentences were less than the government had recommended, but federal prosecutors said they were satisfied.

“Judge Thapar had many complicating factors to consider, and we respect the sentences he pronounced today,” Assistant U.S. Attorney Jeffrey Theodore said Tuesday night.

Theodore said the defendants will receive credit for time served. They have been incarcerated since they were convicted in May 2013 on two felony counts of destroying U.S. property and attempting to injure national defense premises, a charge that falls under the sabotage section of the U.S. code.

Boertje-Obed, Rice, and Walli were each also sentenced to three years supervised release. And they have been ordered to pay roughly $53,000 in restitution for the damage caused when they cut through three fences in the high-security Protected Area at Y-12 on July 28, 2012, and splashed blood, spray-painted slogans, and hammered on the side of the $549 million Highly Enriched Uranium Materials Facility, which stores most of the nation’s bomb-grade uranium.

Defense attorney Chris Irwin had asked Thapar to release Walli on time served, which, so far, has been about nine months.

“My clients are going to prison for years,” Irwin said after the hearing when asked if he was pleased with the shorter-than-recommended sentences. “I’m never pleased to see people go to prison.”

Three anti-nuclear weapons activists cut through three fences in a high-security area at the Y-12 National Security Complex on July 28, 2012, splashed human blood and, quoting Proverbs, sprayed paint on the Highly Enriched Uranium Materials Facility. The protesters also hammered the building, causing it to chip, and strung up crime scene tape. (Submitted photo)

Walli had been facing the longest potential sentence, a range of about seven to nine years. Boertje-Obed’s recommended sentence had been about six to eight years, and Rice’s was roughly five to seven years.

Theodore called Boertje-Obed and Walli incorrigible habitual offenders whose criminal histories outweigh their good works.

“There has to be a heavy toll for people that are going to engage in this activity,” Theodore said. “They don’t have regrets about what they did. They are not going to be deterred.”

Rice asked Thapar for a life sentence, a request that was denied. She said her time in jail has been educational because she has learned about troubling prison conditions.

The three protesters, who called their Y-12 operation Transform Now Plowshares, have said they were nonviolent and religiously motivated when they broke into Y-12 in July 2012. They have said they were inspired by the nonviolent protests led by Martin Luther King Jr. and Mahatma Gandhi, among others.

But prosecutors argued during the May 2013 trial that the unprecedented security breach significantly disrupted Y-12 and interfered with the national defense. In addition to a two-week shutdown of nuclear operations and the damage to Y-12′s reputation, a secret shipment of materials that had been scheduled to arrive the day of the intrusion had to be delayed, prosecutors and government witnesses said during the May 2013 trial.

The 811-acre Y-12 plant was built during World War II to enrich uranium for the world’s first atomic bombs as part of the top-secret Manhattan Project. Today, it continues to play a key role in the nation’s nuclear weapons complex, storing most of the nation’s highly enriched uranium and supplying fuel for naval reactors, among other things.

Michele Naar-Obed, wife of Y-12 protester Greg Boertje-Obed, attended Tuesday’s hearing, and she said she has also participated in Plowshares protests. She said she thought a metaphorical window had been opened at the sentencing hearing.

“I am just feeling grateful that the judge was struggling with the letter of the law and the spirit of the law,” Naar-Obed said.

Boertje-Obed, Rice, and Walli are expected to serve at least 85 percent of their sentences. They could be let out early on supervised release if they receive maximum credit for good behavior.

In the meantime, the cases could be appealed, but that process could take 1.5 to two years, defense attorney Bill Quigley said.

“It’s going to be a long road,” Quigley said.

More information will be added as it becomes available.

_______________ 2nd article ----------
 Nun gets nearly 3 years in prison for nuke protest 
By TRAVIS LOLLER

KNOXVILLE, Tenn. (AP) — An 84-year-old nun was sentenced Tuesday to nearly three years in prison for breaking into a nuclear weapons complex and defacing a bunker holding bomb-grade uranium, a demonstration that exposed serious security flaws at the Tennessee plant.

Two other peace activists who broke into the facility with Megan Rice were sentenced to more than five years in prison, in part because they had much longer criminal histories of mostly non-violent civil disobedience.

Although officials said there was never any danger of the protesters reaching materials that could be detonated or made into a dirty bomb, the break-in raised questions about safekeeping at the Y-12 National Security Complex in Oak Ridge. The facility holds the nation's primary supply of bomb-grade uranium and was known as the "Fort Knox of uranium."

After the break-in, the complex had to be shut down, security forces were re-trained and contractors were replaced.

In her closing statement, Rice asked the judge to sentence her to life in prison, even though sentencing guidelines called for about six years.

"Please have no leniency with me," she said. "To remain in prison for the rest of my life would be the greatest gift you could give me."

She said the U.S. government was spending too much money on weapons and the military, and she told the judge about the many letters of support she had received, including one from youth in Afghanistan.

"This is the next generation and it is for these people that we're willing to give our lives," she said.

Rice, Greg Boertje-Obed (bohr-CHEE' OH'-bed) and Michael Walli all said God was using them to raise awareness about nuclear weapons and they viewed the success of their break-in as a miracle.

Their attorneys asked the judge to sentence them to time they had already served, about nine months, because of their record of good works throughout their lives.

Rice is a sister in the Society of the Holy Child Jesus. She became a nun when she was 18 and served for 40 years as a missionary in western Africa teaching science.

Walli's attorney said the activist served two tours in Vietnam before returning to the U.S. and dedicating his life to peace and helping the poor. Walli said he had no remorse about the break-in and would do it again.

"I was acting upon my God-given obligations as a follower of Jesus Christ," he told U.S. District Judge Amul Thapar.

The judge said he was concerned the demonstrators showed no remorse and he wanted their punishment to be a deterrent for other activists. He was also openly skeptical about whether the protesters caused any real harm and challenged prosecutors to prove it. Assistant U.S. Attorney Jeff Theodore said they had destroyed the "mystique" of the "Fort Knox of uranium."

They painted messages such as, "The fruit of justice is peace," and splashed baby bottles of human blood on the bunker wall.On July 28, 2012, the three activists cut through three fences before reaching a $548 million storage bunker. They hung banners, strung crime-scene tape and hammered off a small chunk of the fortress-like Highly Enriched Uranium Materials Facility, or HEUMF, inside the most secure part of complex.

"The reason for the baby bottles was to represent that the blood of children is spilled by these weapons," Boertje-Obed, 58, a house painter from Duluth, Minn., said at trial.

Although the protesters set off alarms, they were able to spend more than two hours inside the restricted area before they were caught.

When security finally arrived, guards found the three activists singing and offering to break bread with them. The protesters reportedly also offered to share a Bible, candles and white roses with the guards.

The Department of Energy's inspector general wrote a scathing report on the security failures that allowed the activists to reach the bunker, and the security contractor was later fired.

Some government officials praised the activists for exposing the facility's weaknesses. But prosecutors declined to show leniency, instead pursing serious felony charges.

Prosecutors argued the intrusion was a serious security breach that continued to disrupt operations at the Y-12 complex even months later.

Attorneys for Rice and Walli, 65, both of Washington, D.C., said the protesters were engaged in a symbolic act meant to bring attention to America's stockpile of nuclear weapons, which they view as both immoral and illegal under international law.

Boertje-Obed's wife, Michele Naar-Obed, said before the hearing that she would figure out a way to deal with the sentence, whatever it was. Her real concern was that her husband's actions and imprisonment were not in vain.

"What I'm hopeful for is that people really could appreciate what he did and why he did it and who he did it for. He did it for all of us," Naar-Obed said.

The activists were found guilty on May 8 of sabotaging the plant and damaging federal property.

On Tuesday, about 75 supporters filled the courtroom and an overflow room where they watched the proceedings on a video feed. At a previous hearing, friends of the defendants testified to their good characters and kind hearts, saying the three had dedicated their lives to pursuing peace and serving the poor.

In addition to the prison sentences, each is required to spend an additional three years of supervised release and jointly pay nearly $53,000 in restitution.