Opinion ID: 1435629
Heading Depth: 3
Heading Rank: 1

Heading: Kevin Kjonaas

Text: Kevin Kjonaas was the President of SHAC. Kjonaas lived at SHAC's Somerset, New Jersey, headquarters with two co-Defendants, Lauren Gazzola and Jacob Conroy. Kjonaas's work on the campaign began in the United Kingdom. At trial, the government played a video of Kjonaas speaking at a workshop in Little Rock, Arkansas, about the origins of SHAC's campaign against Huntingdon. He described a series of campaigns in England, dating back to 1996, that inspired SHAC's efforts. Those campaigns incorporated both legal and illegal tactics to shut down various animal-related enterprises. He described demonstrations during which protestors tore down fences surrounding the targeted facilities, and broke into buildings to liberate the animals kept inside. He relayed the early organizers' frustration with the police trying to prevent [them] from doing what was right, and how those early organizers pushed the police aside, ... opened up the fences, [and] took the animals out. (J.A. at 1830.) He described footage of another protest during which the demonstrators threw so many rocks onto the roof of one facility that the roof caved in, and every window in the building was smashed. Kjonaas described this as one of the funniest things [he had] ever seen. (J.A. at 1833.) He described another protest where the demonstrators arrived at a targeted facility, which was also someone's home, and tore down newly-erected security fences, disconnected newly-installed security cameras, broke car windows, kicked in the front door, and evacuated the animals. Although SHAC often attributed illegal activity to other organizations or anonymous sources, the government presented evidence that Defendants coordinated, directed and personally participated in the illegal acts. Here, we recount a sample of specific instances that demonstrate Kjonaas's involvement, in chronological order. In the fall of 2000, a website called www. stephenskills.com was published online. The website explained that Stephens, an investor with Huntingdon, had provided a financial bailout for the lab. Under a heading labeled Consequences, the site stated, We must show all other financial institutions via our actions against Stephens Incorporated that having any financial connections to Huntingdon will mean blocked up phone lines, flooded e-mail systemse [sic] and mailboxes, demonstrations outside and inside of offices, protests at the homes of the CEO's [sic] and company Directors. ... (J.A. at 2861.) At trial, a Stephens employee testified that these threats became a reality in the fall of 2000. In January 2001, the Stephens employee met with Kjonaas at Kjonaas's request. As a pre-condition, Stephens asked Kjonaas to remove www.stephenskills.com from the internet. A few days later, the website was down. During their meeting, the two sides agreed to disagree about Huntingdon. Shortly thereafter, Stephens was targeted by a massive direct action campaign that included a virtual sit-in, a protest that involved hundreds of activists attempting to access Stephens's website simultaneously and repeatedly in an effort to shut it down. Approximately 1,300 people participated in this virtual sit-in, which resulted in major disruptions to Stephens's day-to-day business operations. When two members of the Huntingdon Board of Directors resigned in January 2003, Kjonaas led the effort to obtain the identities of the new directors so that SHAC could disseminate their personal information in order to target them. The record contains dozens of pages of transcribed phone calls between Kjonaas and various individuals that demonstrate his intense effort to obtain this information. In a February 2003 phone call, Kjonaas discusses how awesome it was that a company had severed ties with Huntingdon only ten days after the protests began. Kjonaas explained that the campaign against Marsh had been an example of what would have happened if the target did not end its relationship with Huntingdon. Kjonaas stated, It's like how we beat Quilcap too. [6] (J.A. at 2240.) In an e-mail exchange dated March 3, 2003, two members of SHAC discussed resurrecting the Animal Defense League of New Jersey (ADL-NJ) for the purpose of attributing future protest activity to the organization in lieu of crediting the protests to SHAC. In the e-mail, Kjonaas told co-Defendant Darius Fullmer that using ADL-NJ is better than making up other silly little groups that are going to be bound by ... injunctions. Kjonaas added that SHAC is supposed to be a national `communications' group and cannot... take responsibility for future protest events. (J.A. at 2612.) In August 2003, a bomb exploded at the California offices of Chiron, Inc., a pharmaceutical company that was a Huntingdon client. SHAC posted a bulletin on its website announcing the explosion, stating that a group called The Revolutionary Cells claimed responsibility. In the post, Kjonaas was quoted as saying, [T]his action against Chiron marks a drastic escalation in severity. Although SHAC-USA may share the same passion for ending injustice and closing Huntingdon, we know nothing more about `The Revolutionary Cells' and their intentions. If I were Huntingdon or Chiron, I would be very worried. (J.A. at 1550.) Less than twelve hours after the bomb detonated, telephone records show that Kjonaas called Daniel Andreas San Diego, the man later charged with the bombing.