Latest Updates for Tim DeChristopher’s Sentencing

For the latest information from the people on the ground: Watch the #Bidder70 Hashtag on Twitter
Visit www.peacefuluprising.org/tim-dechristopher for more information on how to support and get in touch with Tim.
Latest highlighted news coverage:
  • From Tim DeChristopher to Tar Sands Protests, the Environmental Movement Steps up Civil Disobedience 17 2 0 0 Tim said “By its very nature, civil disobedience is an act whose message is that the government and its laws are not the sole voice of moral authority.” I would go even further: the government is not the sole voice of moral authority, and it is not any voice of moral authority. ...
  • Letter from prison: Tim DeChristopher speaks 17 2 0 0 Tim DeChristopher is followed by reporters as he walks to the courthouse before sentencing.Photo: Jennifer PredigerThe following text appeared in a handwritten letter from Tim DeChristopher addressed to Grist’s Jennifer Prediger. If I had ever doubted the power of words, Judge Benson made their importance all too clear at my sentencing last month. When ...
  • Tim DeChristopher’s Message 17 2 0 0 If we allow the law to dictate what is fair as in the case of putting Tim DeChristopher behind bars—for committing civil disobedience in the name of a livable future, for raising a paddle to expose corruption between industry and government—then we are not just prisoners but slaves to the corporations in ...
  • Tim DeChristopher supporters issue oil protest ‘call to action’ 17 2 0 0 Activist spends first day in prison as civil disobedience group vows to use two-year sentence to build momentum for further protests. “Consider this your call to action,” says Peaceful Uprising. 17 2 0 0
  • Tim DeChristopher: Is Civil Disobedience The Key To Climate Change Action? 17 2 0 0 (Lindsy) Floyd said she was “sick of signing petitions and ‘liking’ things on Facebook,” adding that her contributions to nonprofit groups working to preserve Utah wilderness have proved ineffectual. “The system in place is designed to limit our effectiveness as citizens and agents of change,” she said. “To critics, I ask: if not ...
  • Police, protesters profess praise over 26 arrests in DeChristopher demonstration 17 2 0 0 It’s not often that cops — and those whom they arrest — express mutual praise. But that unlikely twist is part of the aftermath of Tuesday’s wholesale arrests at the federal courthouse… Police Chief Burbank said it was “the smoothest arrest of 26 individuals that I have ever seen.” 17 2 0 0
  • The Associated Press: Activist gets 2 years prison for thwarting auction 17 2 0 0 Many had said they hoped DeChristopher would be given community service in lieu of prison time. “He’s a decent young man, he should be allowed to move on with his life. He didn’t harm anybody, and he didn’t do it out of greed,” said Delphi Alvarado, 53, of Salt Lake City. ...
  • The Salt Lake Tribune: DeChristopher gets 2 years, $10K fine for impeding lease auction 17 2 0 0 The sentence — condemned by protestors who staged a sit-in outside the Salt Lake City courthouse, locking themselves together with plastic ties — follows DeChristopher’s high-profile spoiling of a federal auction in late 2008. 17 2 0 0
  • Public Citizen: DeChristopher Is An Activist, Not A Criminal 17 2 0 0 Massey’s April 2010 mine explosion killed 29 miners, but the company maneuvered out of lawsuits with only paying fines. No one went to jail. Similarly, the BP oil disaster killed 11 men, injured 17 others, contaminated hundreds of miles of coastline, shut much of the Gulf down to fishing and caused untold environmental ...
  • LA Times Opinion: Tim DeChristopher: Do crimes of civil disobedience deserve a lesser penalty? 17 2 0 0 Tim DeChristopher, the environmental activist who disrupted a 2008 government auction with fake energy lease bids, faces sentencing after his March conviction. He could go to jail for up to 10 years. To some, it's a justifiable sentence for an audacious man who tried to take the law in his own hands ...
  • Grist Video: Will Tim DeChristopher go to prison? 17 2 0 0 DeChristopher was feeling good about having stood up for what he feels is right, despite the consequences. “It’s made me start to view myself as a powerful activist, as somebody who can be a powerful agent of change. Not somebody who’s a victim of my society.” Organizers from Peaceful Uprising are prepared ...
  • Peter Yarrow: Tim DeChristopher’s courageous bid to save our world 17 2 0 0 Tim is a hero to me, the kind of hero Peter, Paul and Mary stood up for consistently over the last 50 years. There is a massive complicity in America today between the corporations that fund elections and the officeholders they elect. Actions like Tim’s are aimed at disrupting that complicity. For ...
  • 10 years in prison for activist who bid on oil leases? 17 2 0 0 Prosecutors urge judge to make example of environmentalist What’s fair punishment for an environmentalist who submitted phony lease bids in order to derail oil and gas drilling on public land near national parks? A judge will decide Tuesday and has the option of going as far as 10 years in prison and a ...
  • Activist who faked energy lease bids faces sentencing 17 2 0 0 DeChristopher has become a cause célèbre for many environmental activists. In an interview Monday, he said he has been prosecuted not because of what he did, but because he urged other activists to follow in his footsteps. 17 2 0 0
  • Up to 10 Years in Prison for Tim DeChristopher 17 2 0 0 DeChristopher has prepared himself for a prison sentence; he plans to write a prison journal on the criminal justice system, and hopes his actions will inspire others to fight for the environment. The 30-year-old activist tells Mother Jones now that he would “definitely not” have it another way if he could wind ...
  • Video: Tim DeChristopher (Bidder 70) to Be Sentenced to Jail Time: NoCureForThat.org 17 2 0 0 After reviewing the leases; it was found that only about 20% of the 116 parcels up for auction that day were legal. The orchestrators and deal brokers who put these illegal deals together face no charges, while DeChristopher, for stopping illegal sale of public lands faces up to 10 years in prison ...
  • Bill McKibben: Tim DeChristopher and the Feds 17 2 0 0 Tim’s sentence is clearly designed to send a message to anyone else who might be thinking of defying the government, even in the most peaceful and civil way. The feds charged him with financial fraud, as if his goal had somehow been to make money from his actions. As a result he ...
  • DeChristopher: More must follow me 17 2 0 0 “We know that now I’ll have to go to prison,” DeChristopher said. “If we’re going to achieve our vision, many after me will have to join me as well.” Many in the crowd called back: “I’ll join you.” 17 2 0 0
  • No ‘Choice of Evils’ Defense in Oil Lease Case, Judge Rules 17 2 0 0 Tim said he believed the looming dangers of climate change and environmental impact from drilling were so great and urgent that he had no choice but to take whatever action he could to stop the drilling program… “Unlike a person demolishing a home to create a firebreak,” Judge Benson wrote, “DeChristopher’s actions ...
  • Environmentalist Creates Uproar at Oil-Lease Auction by Running Up Prices 17 2 0 0 Instead of joining his protester friends on the snowy sidewalk outside the Bureau of Land Management office in Salt Lake City, Tim DeChristopher took a seat inside. In a room milling with oil and gas men who knew one another by sight, he was the unknown in a red parka, registering as ...