Sentencing hearings have been postponed from next week for two people who pleaded guilty to participating in the 1998 arsons that destroyed a lodge at the Vail ski area.
Prosecutors are recommending that Chelsea Dawn Gerlach and Stanislas Gregory Meyerhoff, both 29, receive 10 years in prison for their role in the arsons as well as participation in a slate of other crimes aimed at government agencies and businesses they believed were not acting with environmental responsibility.
Attorneys involved in the case said Thursday’s sentencing date probably will be pushed back until spring to allow federal courts to consider the fates of all 19 defendants accused in the five-year eco- terrorism crime spree.
The secretive, loose-knit cell, which called itself “the family,” frequently attributed its work to the Earth Liberation Front.
Gerlach and Meyerhoff are accused of aiding cell leader Bill Rodgers in torching Two Elk Lodge and several other buildings on top of the Vail ski area in protest of the resort’s plans to expand into habitat for the endangered Canada lynx.
Rodgers, a Prescott, Ariz., bookstore owner, committed suicide in jail after being arrested a year ago.
Confessed co-conspirators Kevin Tubbs and Jacob Ferguson are also awaiting sentencing for their lesser roles in the Vail fires.
Two others connected to the conspiracy, Josephine Sunshine Overaker and Rebecca Rubin, are fugitives believed to have fled the country.
The blazes at Vail alone caused an estimated $12 million in damage.
From 1996 to 2001, the cell also attacked U.S. Forest Service administrative buildings and research stations, federal Bureau of Land Management installations, two meatpacking companies, two lumber companies, a Chevrolet dealership, a tree farm, a university horticulture center and a Bonneville Power Administration transmission tower in the Northwest.
Staff writer Steve Lipsher can be reached at 970-513-9495 or slipsher@denverpost.com.
