A member of an extremist group that carried out 17 acts of domestic terrorism in the name of animal and environmental rights in five western states has been sentenced to 51 months in federal prison.

Jonathan Christopher Mark Paul, 41, was sentenced on August 1, 2007, for his role in a fire that burned down a horse slaughterhouse in Redmond, Oregon, in 1997.  Paul, a former firefighter, confessed to serving as a lookout and to mixing gasoline and other ingredients for the device that caused the blaze.

Paul was the last member of an ecoterror group calling itself “The Family” to be sentenced.  The group caused over $40 million in damages in California, Colorado, Oregon, Washington and Wyoming between 1996 and 2001, according to the Justice Department.  Paul was recruited into the movement at an Earth First! gathering in Oregon, according to the indictment.

In addition to his prison term, Paul was ordered to submit a book report to the Federal Judge on Three Cups of Tea prior to reporting to prison.

In 1993, Paul spent five months in jail for contempt of court in Spokane, Washington, for refusing to testify in an investigation into a 1991 Animal Liberation Front raid that caused $100,000 in damages to U.S. Department of Agriculture offices at Washington State University.