Swordsmyth
01-20-2019, 08:15 PM
A federal judge found four humanitarian aid volunteers guilty on some of the charges against them for dropping off water and food for migrants at a protected wilderness area (https://bit.ly/2RDjFcS) along the Arizona-Mexico border, notorious for the number of human remains recovered each year.U.S. Magistrate Judge Bernardo Velasco found Natalie Hoffman, a volunteer with humanitarian aid group No More Deaths, guilty on all three charges against her. He also found three other volunteers — Oona Holcomb, Madeline Huse and Zaachila Orozco-McCormick — guilty of the two charges they each faced.
Hoffman had been charged with operating a vehicle inside the Cabeza Prieta National Wildlife Refuge in southwestern Arizona, entering without a permit, and leaving behind 1-gallon water jugs and cans of beans. The charges stemmed from an encounter with a U.S. Fish and Wildlife officer at Cabeza Prieta on Aug. 13, 2017 (https://www.azcentral.com/story/news/politics/border-issues/2019/01/15/cabeza-prieta-national-wildlife-refuge-trial-against-humanitarian-aid-volunteers-tucson-arizona/2583531002/).
The court found her three co-defendants, all passengers in the truck Hoffman was driving inside the refuge, guilty of entering the area without a permit and abandoning personal property.
"The Defendants did not get an access permit, they did not remain on the designated roads, and they left water, food, and crates in the Refuge. All of this, in addition to violating the law, erodes the national decision to maintain the Refuge in its pristine nature," Velasco wrote in his three-page order posted online Friday afternoon.
More at: https://news.yahoo.com/four-aid-volunteers-found-guilty-205240702.html
Hoffman had been charged with operating a vehicle inside the Cabeza Prieta National Wildlife Refuge in southwestern Arizona, entering without a permit, and leaving behind 1-gallon water jugs and cans of beans. The charges stemmed from an encounter with a U.S. Fish and Wildlife officer at Cabeza Prieta on Aug. 13, 2017 (https://www.azcentral.com/story/news/politics/border-issues/2019/01/15/cabeza-prieta-national-wildlife-refuge-trial-against-humanitarian-aid-volunteers-tucson-arizona/2583531002/).
The court found her three co-defendants, all passengers in the truck Hoffman was driving inside the refuge, guilty of entering the area without a permit and abandoning personal property.
"The Defendants did not get an access permit, they did not remain on the designated roads, and they left water, food, and crates in the Refuge. All of this, in addition to violating the law, erodes the national decision to maintain the Refuge in its pristine nature," Velasco wrote in his three-page order posted online Friday afternoon.
More at: https://news.yahoo.com/four-aid-volunteers-found-guilty-205240702.html