From the Mining Journal:
MARQUETTE – Keweenaw Bay Indian Community member Charlotte Loonsfoot received a 30-day delay of sentence today on a misdemeanor trespass charge involving a May protest of the Kennecott Eagle Minerals Company at Eagle Rock.
Loonsfoot, 37, of Baraga pleaded no contest today to the charge in Marquette County District Court. If she abides by all terms of the 30-day delay, the prosecution has agreed to dismiss the charge.
Defense attorney Karrie Wichtman of the Lansing firm of Rosette and Associates said the no contest plea allowed Loonsfoot to admit no wrongdoing.
Loonsfoot said she plans to run for a seat on the tribal council to try to change things from within. She said she thinks the council could be doing more to try to stop the mine, which is located on treaty lands.
“And they’re not,” Loonsfoot said.
Wichtman said, “The tribe is one of the only entities that could effect change in this situation.”
Loonsfoot said she decided to accept the plea agreement offered by the prosecution after seeing the outcome of the trespassing jury trial against Cynthia Pryor of Big Bay, held earlier this year.
In Pryor’s case, the judge did not allow certain contentions involving alleged lease violations by Kennecott to be considered.
Loonsfoot said Pryor’s case would likely serve as a precedent and she therefore didn’t expect she would have been allowed to make those same arguments in her case.
Pryor received a six-month delay of sentence after the jury found her guilty.
Loonsfoot and Christopher Chosa, 29, were among six protesters removed by police from Eagle Rock on May 27. Four protesters left the site when asked, while Loonsfoot and Chosa refused and were arrested without incident, police said.
Chosa and Loonsfoot were part of a group of people who had set up an encampment at Eagle Rock, taking a stand against Kennecott’s nickel and copper mine.
The protesters – which also included non-Native Americans – were concerned about tribal access to Eagle Rock – a site considered sacred by the tribe – and pollution of water resources in the area including the Salmon Trout River.
The rock outcropping is located on state land leased to Kennecott for the mine’s surface facilities in Michigamme Township.
Chosa pleaded no contest to the charge July 27 and was sentenced earlier this month in Marquette County District Court in Ishpeming.
He received a six-month delay of sentence and six hours of community service. His case will be dismissed by the prosecution if he fulfills the terms of his six-month delay, according to county probation officials.
Loonsfoot’s case had been slated to go to trial this morning.
Turtle Talk 