Men Get Six Months In Jail For Stealing Food From Garbage Can

Men Were Headed To Rainbow Family Gathering
http://www.thedenverchannel.com/news/9779576/detail.html

 

i have been scolded by employees, but never seen any police. i think that is crazy to get a felony for, much less 6 mos in jail. my family would have been stuck if that was to happen to me when were traveling, come to think of it even now. i love going past the hostess thriftstore dumpster. my father in law has found a soda dumpster where there are just truck loads wasted.

 

http://www.denverpost.com/news/ci_4297392


Veggie thieves' penalty tossed

6-month jail term pared to a week The DA reconsiders after an outcry for the Rainbow Family followers who made off with overripe produce.
By Steve Lipsher
Denver Post Staff Writer



One week into a six-month jail sentence for stealing overripe produce, two visitors to July's Rainbow Family gathering unexpectedly were freed Wednesday afternoon after a maelstrom of protest.

Facing criticism for what many considered an inappropriately harsh plea deal for a minor crime, Routt County District Attorney Bonnie Roesink agreed to release Giles Charlé, 24, of Somersworth, N.H., and David Siller, 27, of Wayne, Pa.

In effect, their sentence, which had become an international cause célèbre, was reduced to one week behind bars under the terms of the agreement between prosecutors and defense attorney Wayne Westphale.

When the story first was reported in the Steamboat Pilot and spotlighted by the Drudge Report over the weekend, the newspaper's website was crashed by 32,000 online visitor "hits" - nearly six times the normal load.

In the following days, hundreds of Rainbow sympathizers signed an online petition that compared Charlé and Siller to the food-stealing protagonist in Victor Hugo's novel "Les Misérables" and requested their freedom.

Denver activist Richard Meyers, who is responsible for the Web protest, indicated that the story received attention in Israel, Canada, Turkey, Sweden, Australia, Great Britain and Portugal. He had suggested a boycott of the ski-resort town.

"Perseverance and media and political pressure have combined to cause the district attorney's office to rethink its position," Westphale said.

The dramatic U-turn came just a day after Roesink and assistant district attorney Kerry St. James defended the strict plea deal before Routt County commissioners, even as the store owners argued that they did not want to see Charlé and Siller in jail.

"These are not poor, starving people that didn't have anything to eat, that took some garbage and took it away," Roesink said on Tuesday. "... We think jail time is a good consequence to prevent people from committing crimes in this community."

She could not be reached for comment Wednesday evening.

Charlé and Siller were arrested June 26 after an eyewitness saw them jumping the fence around Sweet Pea Produce, an open-air market. The pair admitted taking cucumbers, asparagus, apricots and cherries that were slated for a local pig farm, and they pleaded guilty to trespassing rather than felony burglary.

Summoned to the store by police that night,


the shaken owners, Jonathon Hieb and Katherine Zambrana, reflexively said they wanted to press criminal charges "to the fullest extent of the law."
"You have to understand, the atmosphere was very paranoid at the time. All of the business owners were definitely on guard" because of the anticipated influx of 20,000 neo-hippies for the counterculture Rainbow gathering, Hieb said.

"When we got there, we were extremely upset and very worried about what had happened, and ... we truly thought we had been burglarized."

The next day, however, he discovered that the pair never gained access to the retail portion of the store.

"I immediately came to the conclusion that all these guys did was trespass, which is a crime, and they should have been punished - but not a felony or jail time," Hieb said.

Hieb said he contacted St. James and implored him not to pursue the charges but says he was told by the prosecutor: "I'm going to send a message to the community."

St. James said he relied on police reports and Zambrana's original statements in making his plea offer, and he chastised Hieb for not appearing in court if he felt so strongly about dropping the case.

"It does now, however, appear that based upon incomplete and incorrect information, a portion of the community has committed to a view of this case and its outcome. My office will not be able to change this misperception," St. James wrote in his letter to Westphale agreeing to release Charlé and Siller.

"It's just been completely blown out of proportion," Hieb said. "I thought for sure the professionals would handle this in a professional way, and by that, I mean fair and just."

Staff writer Steve Lipsher can be reached at 970-513-9495 or slipsher@denverpost.com.

 

Why dumb ass prosecutors insist on trying to set an example or send a message via criminal prosecution still baffles me. Inevitably, the wrong message is sent and usually this amounts to cruel and unusual punishment, which only serves to piss me off further.

 

i saw this on myspace, and i'll say the same thing i said there, its messed up man, good thoughts and postive vibes love n light being sent there way.


its getting worst across the country for divers man, in bham the papa johns throws a lock on there dumpster, and rumors have it, that some of the places there put poison in there dumpsters. whats the point, if your gonna throw it way, kick it down to someone whos hungry. man this socity is getting worst day by day, the goverment spends all this money on weapons and all, and we wonder why theres hungry people on the streets. more money for the poor, less for weapons

 

I agree. It seems really really silly for people to punish those picking out of garbage cans. It seems so stupid that restaurants won't just give the food away if they aren't going to use it. Why throw it out if it's just a little overripe. I work at a food co-op and employees take almost-expired food home for free...or veggies and fruit that is overripe...I usually take anything that's left and give it away...

I mean, otherwise, it's just going to waste!

 

Totally agree!

Its all about "image" Those who are well-off, dont wish to see the poor among them. They just want to see everything rosey and perfect.

I thought it was crazy when I read the attorney said the boys "took something that did not belong to them". If its in the trash, then its free for the taking, IMO! (... jumping fences Id be careful about though


Ive had my own experiences eating out of trashcans.... so I say to anyone having a hard time, do what you have to do to get by. Last year I had to do some wastebasket-eating because I couldnt make ends meet. Luckily, I was working for a janitorial company, though, and just happened to be the person emptying office wastebaskets and cleaning kitchens. Sometimes I would be lucky and if the business had held a big party, I'd score a box of pizza or half sheets of cake! that were left out on the tables for us to clean up... I'd bring it home and my sister and I would eat on it all week lol. Then other times, I wouldnt find anything... and I would actually take (sometimes questionable) stuff out of the wastebaskets. I usually found alot of takeout dinners the people only ate a few bites of, for example, and Id eat the stuff that didnt look like had been touched... I was ashamed of this for a long time but .... I dont look at it that way now. I did what I had to. I was having a hard time then. I shouldnt be ashamed for doing what I had to do to get by. Besides... sometimes I did find some really nice stuff. Some of my best findings were tasty fresh oranges and other fruits, boxes of chocolate (fancy stuff, I was cleaning a bank and the employees always threw good things away) a $20 bill (I was sooo happy that day!), watches, coins, bottles of lotion and a whole lot of miscallenous valuables I cant even remember now. Oh almost every night Id bring home a bag of inkpens, highlighters, notepads and other goodies that people would just toss out if they were cleaning out their desks. So, I supplied my family with pens for a long time lol

Well anyways ... I hate to see good things being tossed out when it could be handed over to someone who could use it.

 

The shop owners did say compost went to pigs, and the food was not maybe technically in a dumpster but in a patio area or som'n. Anyway, there's a larger story about what actually happened.


So definitely, if you dumpster dive (an I do 2) do it carefully. Make sure you are diving in trash and not potential saved stuff. I'm not going to delve into the reports, because it's a good piece of advice even if they didn't steal from pigs. (but maybe that's why the DA got so mad, they was stealin' from the pig brotherhood)

 

I used to work in a veggie restaurant in NYC and I always
gave away lots of food after we closed (Ahimsa Cafe)

Sometimes POISON can get on food, thats why I threw it away.
Some cleaners and insecticides are really toxic, I always
buried it real deep so no divers would find it.

Not every food outlet knows people are eating garbage nor would
they even care.

Be safe! do not eat garbage!

 

Giles asked me to forward the following letter to AGR.


Dear Family of Living Light,


To refresh memories... David Siller and I were arrested and charged
with a class four felony of burglary and theft after taking a small
amount of discarded produce from the back, outside trash area of Sweet
Pea Market in Steamboat Springs Colorado. Not wanting to risk a
Felony, David and I plead guilty to a misdemeanor of trespassing and
were given a sentence of six months in the Routt County jail. The
story was covered in the Steamboat Today/Pilot and picked up by media
all around the country. David and I were released after a week, due to
pressure the public outcry created on the district attorney's office
It's been a couple weeks now since I've been allowed to leave
Steamboat Springs, Colorado. It's an ok place to be unless you are
forced to stay. I've had a bit of time to reflect upon this crazy
experience. A lot of people have been asking if I actually made it up
to the gathering. I did, David and I got bonded out of jail three
days after being arrested. We spent two weeks up in the woods at the
gathering. We were there for the Fourth and were able to help out with
clean-up before being summoned back into town for our first of many
court appearances. Even if David and I had not been able to get up
into the woods, the clash of cultures experienced in Babylon offered a
very full Rainbow experience. It was the other side of rainbow though,
the side that we have all experienced to varying degrees, the side of
the Rainbow that faces "the cutting edge of Fascism in America" To
take a quote from Donny "Dreadlock", as my parents knew him 30
years ago.
We were totally being screwed over. Everyone that we told our story
to could see how ridiculous it was, and every time we went to court we
thought for sure someone would be able to do something to put an end to
this case that was so obviously a waste of time. But they just kept
sending us through the hoops. We had to hire a lawyer. We had to stay
in the area while our lawyer played the game of smoozing up to this
seemingly cold hearted DA, who had our destiny souly in his hand.
(Fortunately we had learned from our family in the woods the healing
power of projecting love and light, because this guy was an asshole)
And after all this we ended up having to plea guilty to the original
plea bargain which when we first heard it was unimaginable.
But we had begun to prepare ourselves for the possibility of jail. It
hadn't all been bad. We got to travel around the area some. We spent
a lot of time in the town meeting locals and family as they left the
gathering. We got reports on how the clean up was going, and heard
other stories of police craziness. We viewed jail as a spiritual
retreat, an opportunity, an experience. As David and I were making our
way to the county jail, to begin our sentence, a sister handed me a
beautifully woven hemp necklace. I knew I would not be able to have it
in jail but that necklace materialized the thoughts and love that I
knew would be with us.
Two days after we had been in jail the Steamboat Today paper published
a story that revealed the truth of our case. This story was placed on
AGR and from there you helped spread it on the Internet. Everyday
after that we were on the front page of the paper. We kept hearing
more and more about other papers picking up the story, Internet sites
crashing because of all the response, complaints against the District
Attorneys office. Until, one week into our sentence, our lawyer came
in to see us with a letter from the DA's office shortening our
sentence to time served. We were back on the street, free again to
persue our lives how we wanted.
As I sit here and type this letter I still cannot believe that it
worked. They let us out. They let us out, because they had to.
Because you all let them know that you were not going to stand for such
petty bullshit. That is why I am writing this letter to acknowledge
the significance of this experience. My case was small and relatively
insignificant compared to other examples of injustice in the world, but
we can stand back and appreciate the fact, that when we get together to
rally behind something we can make shit happen. I hope you all are as
inspired as I am and recognize and value this power that we all have to
unify. I want to thank all of you for your support. Rainbow is such a
strong network of amazing people I am so blessed to be a part of this
family. I am blessed to be free right now. I am free to write and
share my story and continue to effect change and help to continue this
work.
Giles Charlé
c/o Don E Wirtshafter
6998 SR 329
Guysville, OH 45735




End of messages

 

Okay if they had to scale a fence or sneak past a security guard post or something along the lines of breaking locks and such then maybe I could see it then. If the trash was easily accessed without having to do the previous then what a crock of shit. Hell worst case had em pay for the pig slop (that was what its end use was gonna be).


Welcome to America, give us you hungry, your poor...... just be sure to show up during store hours.