Three #Occupy Domestic Terrorists Get Prison Terms for 5-8 Years

Three #Occupy activists were arrested and held on terrorism conspiracy charges in Chicago in May 2012. The three leftists tried to make Molotov cocktails for attacks during the NATO Summit.

nato three occupy
Brian Church, 20, of Ft. Lauderdale, Fla., Jared Chase, 24, of Keene, N.H., and Brent Vincent Betterly, 24, of Oakland Park, Fla, are the so-called “NATO 3.” According to prosecutors, the three are self-proclaimed anarchists and members of “Black Bloc,” a band of protesters who typically mask their faces to avoid identification. They were arrested prior to the start of the 2012 NATO summit in Chicago. (Chicago Tribune)

Calling Harry Reid—
The three #Occupy terrorists were sentenced this week to prison terms ranging from 5 to 8 years.
The Chicago Tribune reported:

Three out-of-state men were sentenced to prison terms ranging from 5 to 8 years in prison today for making crude Molotov cocktails in the days before the NATO summit in Chicago in May 2012.

Jared Chase was sentenced to 8 years, Brent Betterly to 6 years and Brian Church to 5 years.

Prosecutors had sought 14-year terms for each of the so-called NATO 3, raising the specter of the Boston Marathon bombings during their arguments at the sentencing hearing.

The three were convicted in February of possessing incendiary devices but were acquitted of more serious terrorism charges, a fact stressed by their attorneys.

Chase’s attorney, Thomas Anthony Durkin, contended that prosecutors didn’t seem to understand they lost the terrorism case and were trying to “salvage a lousy, rotten case” with stiff prison sentences.

“They still don’t get that the whole world is laughing at them,” Durkin told Judge Thaddeus Wilson.

But in handing down the sentences, Wilson said the three may not have been “the three Musketeers” but they weren’t “the three stooges” either.

A 48-page sentencing memo by Cook County Assistant State’s Attorney Jack Blakey, who heads the office’s special prosecutions bureau, said the trio have displayed a “defiant refusal to take responsibility for their conduct.”

Addressing the judge before he imposed sentence, Church took offense to the prosecution comparisons to the Boston Marathon bombings.

“I do love my country,” he said. “To be compared to an atrocity hurts, your honor. It rips my heart apart.”

Betterly apologized and said that anarchism isn’t synonymous with terrorism.

“We weren’t serious about much of what was said” in conversations secretly recorded by two undercover Chicago police officers who had infiltrated their group, said Betterly, who nonetheless insisted he was not ducking responsibility.

Rebel Pundit had video of the three #Occupy terrorists in Chicago.

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