Ellerman, Josh (1979–)

aka Douglas Joshua Ellerman

In 1998, 19-year-old Josh Ellerman, a radical animal rights activist, received a seven-year prison sentence for his participation in an alleged Animal Liberation Front (ALF) attack—one of the toughest sentences ever given to an animal rights activists in the United States. His case, along with that of his brother, Clinton Colby Ellerman, marked the beginning of a crackdown on animal rights activists.

On the morning of March 11, 1997, members of ALF detonated at least five pipe bombs at the Fur Breeders Agricultural Co-op in Sandy, Utah, a plant that provided feed, materials, and live mink to hundreds of fur farms in Utah and Idaho. The ensuing blaze caused nearly $1 million in damage; no one was injured. Such destruction of property was a hallmark of ALF, which had engaged in similar tactics during its antifur Operation Bite Back campaign in the early 1990s. (Utah, which claimed the most fur farms of any state in the country, was particularly hard hit by ALF actions.)

That same day, a caller to a Salt Lake City radio show claimed that the bombing was in support of animal rights and ALF and had been committed in the name of Jeff Watkins, a “political prisoner” on a hunger strike in a New York jail. With the help of the caller, investigators later linked Ellerman to the crime. On April 20, 1997, Ellerman turned himself in.

Ellerman initially faced charges that would have carried a minimum mandatory sentence of 35 years; in exchange for a reduced sentence, Ellerman agreed to provide “substantial” cooperation to authorities investigating ALF and other animal rights groups. The information he provided led to several arrests and indictments, as well as sustained surveillance of Salt Lake City's straight-edge community (mostly young, punk rockers who eschew drugs, alcohol, smoking, casual sex, meat, and leather in favor of a proenvironment and animal rights lifestyle). Members of the Coalition Against Fur Trade were said to recruit straight-edgers to become part of the illegal actions of the antifur crusade at concerts in Salt Lake City.

In January 1998, Ellerman pleaded guilty to three of the 16 counts on which he was indicted: maliciously damaging a building with an explosive, making a pipe bomb, and using a pipe bomb. Although he failed to appear for a pretrial hearing, he turned himself in on June 29, 1998.

On September 10, 1998, Ellerman was sentenced to seven years in prison and ordered to pay $750,000 in restitution. Concurrently, five other animal rights activists were also indicted in the bombing. Three were later found not guilty, in part because of the testimony of Ellerman and that of his older brother, Clinton Colby Ellerman. Clinton Ellerman, an animal rights activist and straight-edger, was serving a sentence for releasing more than 3,000 mink from the Holt Mink Ranch in South Jordan, Utah, in July 1996.