Judi Bari Day Marked By $4 Million From FBI, Oakland Police

OAKLAND, California, May 25, 2004 (ENS) - Supporters of Earth First! and the late redwoods forest activist Judi Bari gathered Monday at Oakland City Hall to commemorate the 2nd Annual Judi Bari Day as proclaimed by the City of Oakland.

The date commemmorates a car bombing in Oakland on May 24, 1990 in which Earth First! and Redwood Summer organizers Judi Bari and Darryl Cherney were the victims.

The 14 year series of events ended on May 7, as the FBI joined the City of Oakland in paying Cherney and the Bari estate a combined $4 million for violations of their First and Fourth Amendment rights as guaranteed by the U.S. Constitution.

The FBI and the Oakland Police falsely accused Bari and Cherney of being terrorists injured by their own bomb. In Estate of Judi Bari v. Doyle, a jury in Ul.S. District Court in Oakland awarded $4.4 million to Cherney and the estate of Bari, who died of cancer in 1997.

In their June 2002 verdict, the jury found that Oakland police and FBI agents wrongly blamed the pair for the explosion in an effort to silence their environmental activism under the false cover of a "terrorist" investigation.

All parties in April agreed to a post-trial settlement contract that left the jury verdict intact and awarded the plaintiffs and attorneys a total of $4 million, half paid by the City of Oakland and half by the FBI. It is the largest amount ever paid by the FBI in a lawsuit for violations of civil rights. The $2 million federal share has been paid, and Oakland has paid the first of four annual installments of $500,000. After the money is distributed, no individual involved with this case will net more than $500,000.

City Attorney spokesperson Karen Boyd said the city decided against appealing and agreed to settle as a business decision. "What we analyzed was looking at a settlement in hand versus an unknown future," said Boyd.

"A lot of compromises were made by all parties," Cherney said when informed of the City Council decision. "We knew that Oakland was facing hard times, so we decided to be reasonable and forgo our motion for attorneys' fees if they were willing to be reasonable and offer us a respectable settlement."

The actual perpetrator of the bombing was never caught, nor was any genuine investigation of the bombing carried out, but the FBI and the Oakland Police Department continued to blame the victims right through the 2002 federal jury trial.

Veteran civil rights attorney Dennis Cunningham led the legal team of Bob Bloom, Tony Serra, William Simpich and Ben Rosenfeld, all of the San Francisco Bay Area. “It took 11 years to bring this David v. Goliath case to trial," Cunningham said, "but when a jury of regular people finally saw the evidence, and saw the lies, the FBI was finally busted.”

For their work on this case, legal team members shared the Trial Lawyer of the Year Award for 2003, given by Trial Lawyers for Public Justice (www.tlpj.org ) The official award announcement said: "This award is bestowed annually upon the trial lawyer or lawyers who have made the greatest contribution to the public interest by trying or settling a precedent-setting case. It is the nation's single most prestigious award for trial lawyers."

Alicia Littletree, Bari's close friend and associate who was the legal team's paralegal, said Bari might react to the victory by continuing the fight. "I have a feeling Judi wouldn't have gotten over the fact that the bombing is still not solved," Littletree said. "That is a lingering part of the fight. Judi would not give up just because the money came in."

Cherney has vowed to continue the investigation of the bombing. As part of the post-trial settlement, Cherney negotiated the return of all evidence in the case and convinced the Oakland City Council to proclaim May 24 to be Judi Bari Day.

As Bari said in 1996, "This case is not about me, Darryl, or Earth First! It is about the right of all activists to work for social change without fearing repression by the government's secret police."

Find out more about Judi Bari and the FBI lawsuit please visit: http://www.judibari.org