This morning, after much deliberation with family and friends, I chose to take a non-cooperating plea agreement to reduced charges. Rather than face trial for arson carrying a potential 20-year prison sentence, I entered an Alford plea, which allows me to maintain my innocence while avoiding trial. I have been sentenced to ten years of probation with credit for time served in jail. While this is not an acquittal, it is an outcome I can live with, one that allows me to remain here with my community.
The case against me was built up around a single piece of alleged evidence, a bit of touch DNA found on a bottle cap at the scene of burned APD motorcycles. Due to the flimsy nature of this single piece of alleged evidence, the state sought to use my political views and activities to bolster up their case. When they raided my home on February 8, 2024, they hoped to uncover an explosives factory. Instead, all they found was the banal horror of their own disgruntled constituency.
Although the case concocted against me was weak, and I believe that would have been evident at trial, risking 20 years of my life in our current political climate was no small decision. After two years of waiting, the state ultimately agreed to all of the terms that we had asked for in order to even consider accepting a plea: non-cooperation, an Alford plea, first offender treatment, and no prison time. I have never been much of a gambler and so, after careful consideration, I chose the sure thing. Only about 2% of cases in the US ever make it to trial and that only speaks to the brokenness of the court system.
This case was never about bringing so called justice to a perpetrator for an alleged crime. It was about instilling fear in a strong movement that shook this city to its core and exposed it’s dirtiest inner workings.
Cop City will forever be a stain on the pages of this city’s history, marked indelibly by the courage of those who resisted it.
The glow of red dots scanning my living room before finding their home on my forehead still haunts me. Many nights I still hear the flash bangs. I think of the masked men who charged into my dining room and how they went home to have dinner after, that it was just another day at work.
The depravity of the world is held up by those who are just following orders.
These events have defined the past 2 years of my life: the uncertainty, the dread, the fear. I spent time in one of the most notorious jails in the country. I watched my home transformed into a prison which I could not leave, the very same home that masked men stormed into with guns drawn. I have had a camera disguised as an electrical box placed on a lightpole outside of my home, been followed in my vehicle, and had my movements constantly tracked by ankle monitor. I have had my picture blasted all over the news and was featured in a special press conference with Mr. Andre Dickens. I have had the ATF call my lawyer to threaten me ahead of protests, to attempt to scare me and those around me into silence. Cops have sat outside of my home and blared their sirens in the middle of the night. One night I awoke to a lit flare placed in the bushes against my house.
And yet, despite all of these attempts to break me, I stand here before you with my head held high. I stand here because when I stand here, I know that it is not just my flesh and bones that hold me up, but something much bigger. A body stronger than any I could ever inhabit. I know that I am not alone. I know that my friends, family, and comrades hold me up, and I know that I come from a long line of brave people who have fought, died, and been imprisoned in the struggle for a better world. I stand here strong because I owe it to them.
Repression is designed to break us, to weaken our commitments to one another. It is designed to individualize us, to instill fear and mistrust. Throughout this process, at times, I have felt scared, and I have felt alone. The prospect of losing 20 years of my life, the violence of a life stolen, is not a small thing to bear. It is heavy. It weighs on you. It is to be presented with your own mortality, to be forced to face it head on. This is a sobering thing, and yet, in many ways, it is the most human thing. I have done my best to grow throughout this experience, to understand the fragility of life, and to appreciate every moment I have, no matter where I am. This reckoning with life and mortality is a stark reminder that a life worth living is something worth fighting for.
Much of what the movement against Cop City assumed has already come to pass. Today, Minneapolis and other cities across the US act as training grounds for federal agents to practice unleashing terror on migrants, political opponents, and random citizens alike. Cop City in Atlanta was only one stop on the incessant march to a cop nation. The movement was always about something bigger than one training site, and I am confident that the wisdom forged by the movement against Cop City in Atlanta will continue to inform a new generation.
There is no doubt this empire is caught in the tightening coils of its own death spiral. While the task may seem insurmountable, the future will belong to those who are brave enough to organize and act against seemingly impossible odds.
In closing, I am immensely grateful for the support I received during the time I spent in jail and on house arrest, for all of the letters, the donations, the books, and the words of encouragement. The horror of the state was eclipsed only by the love of comrades. Seeing highways and trains painted with free jack, receiving letters of solidarity from children in New York and Atlanta; friends who popped over for a game of chess while I was stuck on house arrest, local diy spaces and businesses that showed up for me with food and fundraisers, artists who donated art, musicians who played shows, inmates who slid an extra peanut butter sack under the cell door, shared books and newspapers, and who taught me how to sew with a staple and turn ramen packets into a dozen other meals. These things all kept me alive. I spent hours reading letters on the jail kiosk every day, I could not have made it through without them. I will forever be grateful to the movement that held me up and supported me through these dark times. While the world appears to only be getting darker, it is an honor to know such a great light.
Please continue to support the RICO 61 and all those facing charges.
Long live the spirit of Tortuguita.
