Ruby Montoya is doing whatever she can to lighten her punishment after publicly admitting to a string of arson and sabotage attacks against the Dakota Access Pipeline (#DAPL) in 2017. unicornriot.ninja/2021/ruby-mont…
According to a recent article in @TheEconomist, “Montoya agreed to cooperate with the FBI” in fall 2020. During such FBI debriefs, agents typically attempt to solicit information on other activists and pressure co-defendants to testify against each other.
Since summer 2021, Montoya’s lawyer repeatedly filed motions on her behalf asking the court to allow her to file documents under seal—a practice typically avoided by those facing political charges in an effort to be transparent about engagement w/ law enforcement and the courts.
In a motion in federal court in August, Montoya claimed she was coerced into taking action by her co-defendant Jessica Reznicek, who on June 30, 2021, was sentenced to 8 years in prison after accepting a non-cooperating plea deal.
As Montoya scrambles to cast blame on others, the climate movement around her faces fundamental questions about cooperation with law enforcement and movement lawyering.
In addition to filing sealed motions, Montoya's lawyer Daphne Silverman struck a blow against movement lawyering in August. She filed a motion seeking to withdraw Montoya’s guilty plea and accusing Montoya’s former attorney of a conflict of interest stemming from “solidarity.”
Silverman claimed that rather than approach the case with Montoya's best interest in mind, her former attorney Lauren Regan had coerced Montoya into accepting the plea for political reasons—"to accept a packaged plea deal in ‘solidarity’ with her ‘comrade’ in the ‘movement.’"
Pictured are Jessica Reznicek (L) and Ruby Montoya (R).
Read the full story here--->unicornriot.ninja/2021/ruby-mont…
Read the full story here--->unicornriot.ninja/2021/ruby-mont…
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