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Sentencings in Vail fires delayed

Published March 3, 2007 at midnight

Sentencings have been rescheduled for May for two key ecoterrorists who pleaded guilty in December to torching buildings on Vail Mountain in 1998.

At a hearing Friday in U.S. District Court in Eugene, Ore., Judge Ann Aiken ordered a May 22 sentencing for Stanislas Meyerhoff and a May 25 sentencing for Chelsea Gerlach.

The pair had been awaiting sentencings in April for their roles in a five-year Earth Liberation Front terrorism spree, including the Vail arsons.

Meyerhoff previously pleaded guilty to 54 counts in seven strikes, and Gerlach had pleaded guilty to 18 counts in five attacks.

Prosecutors have recommended he serve a 15-year sentence and she serve 10 years.

Code-named the Country Boy and the Country Girl, the one-time high school sweethearts are among 10 arsonists arrested from a gang called "The Family."

All 10 are to be sentenced for about 20 ecoterrorism strikes against government agencies and other facilities, primarily in the Pacific Northwest.

A third defendant, Bill Rodgers, whom the FBI labeled the "mastermind" of a series of fire bombings across the country, committed suicide in jail in December 2005.

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