Plowshares Fugitive Held In Va. Protest Action
Posted: April 05, 1988
Federal fugitive
Gregory Boertje, who failed to appear for sentencing in Philadelphia after conviction for damaging military aircraft at Willow Grove Naval Air Station, was arrested Sunday in Norfolk, Va., for allegedly throwing blood on cruise-missile housings aboard the battleship Iowa.
Boertje, 32, of Baltimore, was arrested with four other anti-war protesters, including
Philip Berrigan, 64. They were charged with trespassing after using hammers, bolt cutters and vials of what appeared to be blood in the symbolic attack.
On Nov. 17, U.S. District Judge Raymond J. Broderick revoked Boertje's $50,000 personal recognizance bond and ordered him arrested for failing to appear for sentencing.
Boertje was convicted, along with three others, of entering the Willow Grove military base early Jan. 6, 1987, and smashing a P-3 Orion anti- submarine plane and two helicopters with sledgehammers. The government estimated damage at $165,602.
Boertje will be given a detention hearing today in Norfolk, and federal authorities in Philadelphia expect him to be returned soon for sentencing in the Willow Grove incident.
Max Obuszewski, a spokesman for Plowshares, a peace group founded by Berrigan eight years ago, said the activists in Sunday's incident selected the battleship as a target because "they see the Iowa as a symbol . . . of superstate madness."
The four wandered away from a group touring the ship at 3:50 p.m., a Navy spokesman said, "and threw what they claimed to be blood on two of the ship's armored-box launchers," which house the Tomahawk missiles.
The protesters were apprehended by Iowa crew members, the spokesman said. There was no apparent damage.
At a hearing yesterday in Norfolk, U.S. Magistrate Tommy Miller told the suspects they could not have a jury trial, because they faced only misdemeanor trespassing charges.
Those arrested, in addition to Berrigan and Boertje, were
Andrew Lawrence, 28, of Baltimore, and
Sister Margaret McKenna, 57, of the city's Fox Chase section, and a member of the Medical Mission Sisters.
Miller set bond at $2,500 and continued the hearing until April 15, when a trial date will be set. If convicted, ther maximum sentence would be six months in jail and a fine of $500.
All four are members of the Nuclear Navy Plowshares, an offshoot of the Plowshares-Disarmament Actions, which has conducted numerous protests on nuclear weapons. The group takes its name from the Biblical passage "and they shall beat their swords into plowshares, and their spears into pruning hooks."
Assistant U.S. Attorney Michael Lazerwitz in Philadelphia said Boertje faced up to 11 1/2 years in prison and a $250,000 fine in the Willow Grove case.
In that incident, Lin Romano, 31, of Washington, was sentenced to two years and 100 days in federal prison and five years on probation and fined a total of $100. Two Catholic priests, the Revs. Dexter Lanctot, 37, of Norristown, and Thomas McGann, 36, of Chester, were sentenced in October to 100 days in prison for their role.
http://articles.philly.com/1988-04-05/news/26253777_1_gregory-boertje-philip-berrigan-max-obuszewski
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