Northumberland County, PA — An engaged couple from Massachusetts was freed on bail from jail last week after the alleged October 19 release of over 600 mink from the Richard H. Stahl Sons Inc. fur farm near Sunbury, off Pennsylvania State Route 890. State prosecutors charged Celeste Legere and Cara Mitrano with over a dozen criminal counts — including ecoterrorism and RICO charges — and they face decades in prison.
Originally held on $150,000 bail each, Legere and Mitrano were later allowed by a judge to post 10 percent of the full bail amount.
Update on the Northumberland 2:
Cara and Celeste are out of jail! Thanks to support from around the world, they received dozens of letters and books while incarcerated. However they are still facing 14 charges including multiple felonies.https://t.co/PaMMBCUMnI
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— Philly ABC (@phillyabc) November 12, 2024
Legere and Mitrano face identical sets of charges in Pennsylvania state court. In addition to the RICO and ecoterrorism charges, they are also charged with Agricultural Vandalism, Criminal Mischief, Theft, Burglary, Loitering and Prowling at Nighttime, Accidents Involving Damage to Attended Vehicle or Property, Recklessly Endangering Another Person, Cruelty to Animals, Agricultural Trespassing on Posted Land, and Depositing Waste on a Highway — as well as Conspiracy counts related to the Ecoterrorism, Agricultural Vandalism and Burglary charges. (An additional charge of “Conspire in Unwarranted Detention” was withdrawn earlier.)
Pennsylvania’s Ecoterrorism statute became law in 2006, shortly before a similar federal law — the Animal Enterprise Terrorism Act — was signed by then-President George W. Bush. Before the PA statute went into effect, the ACLU said that it “violates the First Amendment because it discriminates against certain expressive speech based on the viewpoint of the speaker” and warned that “people who engage in traditional forms of civil disobedience, such as sit-ins, could be treated as terrorists.”
Both the state and federal laws widened the scope of what counts as “terrorism” — a word usually reserved for killing or threatening to kill civilians in order to influence government policy — to include acts intended to “prevent or obstruct” businesses in the agricultural or animal industries.
These laws were part of the post-9/11 “Green Scare” era during which the Earth Liberation Front and Animal Liberation Front were the U.S. government’s top domestic “terror” targets. Industry groups and politicians successfully exploited the political climate after the September 11, 2001 attacks to criminalize direct action movements targeting companies for their harmful and controversial practices — often garnering popular support as animal rights abuses and environmental damages became more widely known.
Chris Carraway, staff attorney at the Animal Activist Legal Defense Project, told Unicorn Riot that the case against Legere and Mitrano is “part of a decades-long effort to vilify and persecute animal rights activists.”
“Here, the addition of animal cruelty charges adds insult to injury. A society that protects an industry that gasses and electrocutes animals to turn them into coats, while charging those who allegedly attempt to free those animals with terrorism and cruelty, has utterly lost its moral compass. The true ecoterrorism on this planet comes from corporate industries that destroy habitats, pollute the environment, and slaughter billions of animals for profit.”
Chris Carraway, Staff Attorney, Animal Activist Legal Defense Project
Pennsylvania State Police Complaint Outlines Alleged Mink Release
Celeste Legere and Cara Mitrano were both arrested in the early hours of October 19 after the Stahl fur farm’s security system went off and surveillance cameras showed two individuals releasing minks from pens and destroying breeding records, according to a Pennsylvania State Police (PSP) complaint.
Much of the PSP probable cause affidavits rely on the narrative provided by members of the Stahl family who own and operate the fur farm — Mark, April and John Stahl.
According to the affidavits, Mark Stahl told state troopers that his “camera sensors were activated” and captured two individuals — alleged to be Legere and Mitrano — “inside the enclosed property…wearing dark clothing with head lamps…carrying bags…[with] their hoods up.” They then released 683 mink “and destroyed records on the pens,“ according to an affidavit.
April Stahl claims to have photographed a vehicle fleeing the fur farm shortly thereafter. (The prosecution asserts this is the same car Legere and Mitrano were later pulled over in when they were arrested.) April Stahl and John Stahl then turned their own car sideways on a road, blocking it, at which point the vehicle leaving the scene is alleged to have struck the Stahls’ car on its way out; April and John Stahl then reportedly followed the fleeing vehicle. (The exact location alleged in the documents is not clear.)
Before losing sight of the fleeing car, April and John Stahl told police that they “observed a backpack, work glove and dark in color sweatshirt get tossed out the suspect vehicles driver and passenger windows.” The items were reportedly recovered later by Pennsylvania State Troopers.
At around 1:14 AM, Legere and Mitrano were pulled over by Ralpho Township Police Officer Glen Wonsock, who arrested them before handing them over to Pennsylvania state troopers Cody Fischer and Jacob Hook – the authors of the affidavits.
Fischer and Hook wrote in an affidavit that they then obtained search warrants for the defendants’ vehicle as well as a backpack and purse found inside it. The troopers claimed to find items including a “pair of work gloves,” a “lock picking kit,” “two headlamps” and “two orange plastic crowbars.”
However, the Affidavit of Probable Cause also includes items of a political nature within the basis for the criminal case – dovetailing with efforts across the country to criminalize anarchist, antifascist and environmental and animal rights movements.
Items listed by police include “Three stickers that read ‘Officer down!’” depicting a smiling star with thumbs up” as well as “Two stick[ers] that read ‘Policy Proposal‘ depicting a police car on fire”, “Anarchist propaganda” and literature about how to use a Virtual Private Network (VPN) and the Tor browser to privately browse the internet.
Political surveillance and profiling of U.S. citizens by the federal government based on their perceived ideology is also directly involved in the case beyond the purely physical mechanics of an alleged criminal act.
The affidavit signed by Troopers Fischer and Hook indicates that the defendants and their roommates have been monitored by federal authorities prior to being accused of anything in court: “Following the search I made contact with FBI Intelligence. The FBI Source informed my that both Mitrano and Legere are connected with two anarchist Communes in… Massachusetts.”
Affidavit Conflates Post-Arrest Bail Arrangements with A Priori Payment for Crimes
Troopers Fischer and Hook’s signed and sworn probable cause statements, approved by Magisterial District Judge Rachel Wiest-Benner, appear to misrepresent one of the defendant’s attempts to raise bail money, purporting a notion that they were expecting to be paid for raiding the fur farm. (Wiest-Benner won an open judicial seat late in 2023.)
Fischer and Hook’s affidavit notes a recorded jail call by Celeste Legere was discussing their bail being set at $150,000, but claims that Legere saying on the call that she was “already promised $50,000…. illustrates Legere was promised $50,000 dollars prior to coming to Pennsylvania and committing the above crimes.” This seems to extend a national trend of attempting to criminalize raising bail funds for arrested protesters — in Atlanta, a similar line of attack led to money laundering charges against a bail fund supporting ‘Stop Cop City’ activists that collapsed last month.
The state police affidavit also notes that as of October 27, 2024, out of the 683 mink released, 619 had been recovered, 64 had not been recovered and 3 died post-recovery. The source for this claim is not cited in the filing.
Judge Skeptical of ‘Terrorism’-Level Bail in November 4 Hearing
A sunny and tranquil afternoon in Sunbury, a central Pennsylvania river town, was the setting for the bail hearing on ecoterrorism and other charges for the two defendants on Monday, November 4, while locals raked leaves and senior citizens strolled the park outside the courthouse.
Watch Unicorn Riot’s dispatch after attending the hearing on Monday, November 4:
EDITOR’S NOTE: This report was recorded before Judge Paige Rosini made a ruling on the defense’s bail modification request.