Suspect In Ecoterrorism Fires To Be Arraigned

GRANTS PASS, Ore. (AP) – A woman who spent a decade as a fugitive from the largest ecoterrorism investigation in U.S. history is due in federal court in Oregon on conspiracy and arson charges. Court records show 39-year-old Rebecca Rubin, a Canadian citizen, was to be arraigned Friday afternoon in U.S. District Court in Eugene.

Rubin turned herself in at the Canadian border with Washington last November. A federal indictment accuses her of being a member of an ecoterrorism group known as The Family based in Eugene, which investigators blame for 20 fires across the West from 1996 to 2001 that did $40 million damage. Among the group’s targets were a ski resort in Colorado, wild horse corrals in Oregon and Northern California, and lumber mills and U.S. Forest Service offices in Oregon.