4 accused of animal rights threats appear in court

One of their attorneys, Lauren Regan, said the case appears to be the first time that people have been prosecuted under the 2006 law. The antiterrorism measure strengthened a previous law, the U.S. Animal Enterprise Protection Act of 1992.

Regan, who works with the Civil Liberties Defense Center in Eugene, Ore., said defense attorneys plan to claim the law is unconstitutional on the ground that it is vague and that it violates the right of free speech.

"We'll be part of the legal team and will help to mount a constitutional challenge to the law," she said.

The four defendants are Joseph Buddenberg, 25, of Berkeley; Maryam Khajavi, 20, of Pinole; Adriana Stumpo, 23, of Long Beach; and Nathan Pope, 26, of Oceanside.

At Thursday's hearing before U.S. Magistrate Howard Lloyd, Buddenberg and Khajavi will be arraigned on an indictment issued by a federal grand jury in San Jose on March 12.

Stumpo and Pope, who were arrested in North Carolina and later transferred to the jurisdiction of federal court in San Jose, will make an initial appearance on the indictment.

The indictment replaced a criminal complaint filed by prosecutors on Feb. 19.

It charges the defendants with two counts: conspiring to threaten people for the purpose of interfering with an animal enterprise and threatening people by placing them "in reasonable fear of death" and serious bodily injury.

The indictment alleges that those who were threatened were bio-medical researchers in the East Bay on Oct. 21, 2007, and Jan. 27, 2008, and at the University of California at Santa Cruz on July 27, 2008.

The now-superseded complaint gave more alleged details. It said the Oct. 21, 2007, incident occurred at the El Cerrito residence of a UC Berkeley professor and the Jan. 27, 2008, incident took place at the homes of six UC Berkeley professors in El Cerrito, Berkeley and Oakland.

The complaint alleged that protesters in the second incident wore black clothing and bandanas, marched, chalked defamatory slogans on sidewalks, and chanted slogans such as "vivisectors go to hell" and "animal abuser leave town."

The complaint alleged that in the third incident, Pope and Stumpo used the Internet on July 27, 2008, to identify 11 UC Santa Cruz biomedical researchers who were named in flyers that were found in a Santa Cruz cafe two days later.

The flyers said, "Animal abusers everywhere beware, we know where you live, we know where you work," according to the complaint.

Regan said the defense team will argue the law violates the First Amendment right of free speech by treating protest as terrorism.

She charged that under the law, "Putting chalk on someone's sidewalk is the same as flying a plane through a building."

The law specifically states, however, that it does not ban "any expressive conduct (including peaceful picketing or other peaceful demonstration) protected from legal prohibition by the First Amendment to the Constitution."

The two charges each carry a possible maximum sentence of five years in prison upon conviction.