https://www.desmoinesregister.com/story/news/crime-and-courts/2022/09/22/dakota-access-pipeline-sabotage-ruby-montoya-jessica-reznicek-6-year-sentence-terrorism/10400734002/
Former Des Moines woman sentenced to 6 years for attacks on Dakota Access Pipeline sites
William Morris
Des Moines Register
The second of two women charged with sabotaging the Dakota Access Pipeline has been sentenced to six years in prison after the judge found her actions constituted a crime of terrorism.
A Des Moines resident at the time, Ruby Montoya, alongside fellow climate activist Jessica Reznicek, was charged with committing multiple acts of vandalism against the then-under-construction pipeline in late 2016 and early 2017. The sabotage included using torches to burn holes in pipe junctions as well as setting fire to heavy construction equipment and other gear at pipeline sites.
Both publicly claimed responsibility in July 2017 in a speech outside the Iowa Utilities Board building. They described the attacks as “direct action” in response to the failure of nonviolent means to persuade government officials to halt the project. Both were associated with the Catholic Worker movement in Des Moines.
The 1,172-mile oil pipeline, which crosses North Dakota, South Dakota, Iowa and Illinois, passes through the reservation of the Standing Rock Sioux tribe in North and South Dakota. The tribe objected to the routing of the pipeline beneath a lake and the Missouri River, important water sources for the reservation, and expressed concern its construction could damage sacred sites.
“To all those that continue to be subjected to the government’s injustices, we humbly stand with you, and we ask now that you stand with us,” Reznicek, who joined protests at the reservation, said at the time.
She and Montoya were charged in 2019 with nine felonies related to attacks on the pipeline in South Dakota and Iowa, and each pleaded guilty to a single count of conspiracy to damage an energy facility. Reznicek was sentenced in June 2021 to eight years in prison.
Montoya switched attorneys and mounted an ultimately unsuccessful attempt to withdraw her plea, which delayed her case for nearly a year. After several more delays, she finally appeared this week before Judge Rebecca Goodgame Ebinger, who found that Montoya’s actions, like Reznicek’s, were “calculated to influence or affect the conduct of government by intimidation or coercion, or to retaliate against government conduct” and therefore constituted a crime of terrorism.
Court: Ruby Montoya has not taken responsibility
Montoya’s sentencing had been set for Wednesday, but the hearing bogged down repeatedly and eventually spilled over into Thursday.
Arizona attorney Maria Borbon, representing Montoya, in previous court filings had indicated she objected to the legal conclusions and guideline recommendations in a presentence report prepared for the hearing. On Wednesday, though, she told the court she also objected to the entire factual basis for Montoya’s conviction, but was unable to identify specific disputes despite repeated prompting from the judge.
Prosecutor Jason Griess, meanwhile, pointed out that Montoya had acknowledged all the relevant acts under oath when she pleaded guilty. Ebinger eventually sided with the prosecution and found there were no factual errors in the report.
Ebinger also sided with the government on disputes over federal sentencing guidelines. Based on Montoya’s efforts to withdraw her plea and cast blame on Reznicek, Ebinger refused to give Montoya credit for acceptance of responsibility. She also denied Montoya’s requests for credit as a “minor participant” and for voluntarily informing law enforcement officials of what she had done.
Court applies terrorism enhancement
On the question of whether the attacks constituted terrorism, Griess noted that the women explicitly addressed their public statements about the attacks to the government.
“The defendants in this case didn’t go to (pipeline owner) Energy Transfer Partners to make their statement. They went to the Iowa Utilities Board,” Griess said. “It’s clear by their conduct and primarily their words that this was not targeted solely at private industry.”
Borbon argued that a U.S. Supreme Court case limiting the ability of the U.S. Environmental Protection Agency to regulate carbon emissions barred the government from considering attacks on energy facilities as terrorism. However, Ebinger said Montoya’s public statements after the attack made clear her desire to retaliate against government officials and pressure them in future decisions, and ruled she should be sentenced under a terrorism enhancement.
Including the enhancement, federal sentencing guidelines called for a sentence of 14 to 17½ years.
Borbon and Montoya asked the judge instead for probation, while Griess asked the court to take into account Montoya’s delaying tactics over the course of the case and sentence her to 10 years.
Reznicek also received a below-guidelines sentence despite a terrorism enhancement. She appealed the enhancement, but a federal appellate court in May agreed it was applicable and noted that Ebinger, who presided in the case, had expressly stated she would have handed down the same sentence with or without the finding of terrorism. 
Why Ruby Montoya sabotaged the Dakota Access Pipeline
Two mental health providers testified Wednesday that Montoya suffers from severe PTSD related to pervasive childhood neglect and abuse, as well as disorders that leave her prone to mentally disassociating from stressful situations. They said those conditions can leave her unresponsive or prone to manipulation and amnesia.
Both said they believe that, as a result, she was uniquely prone to suggestion and manipulation by other, more forceful personalities. Dr. Anne Speckhard, a psychologist and director at the International Center for the Study of Violent Extremism, described the Des Moines Catholic Worker house where Montoya lived as a “cult-like” environment, based on how Montoya described her experiences there.
“Jessica (Reznicek) was very good at manipulating her, very good at making her do what she (Reznicek) wanted to do,” Speckhard said, adding that it is very common in extremist groups for leaders to surround themselves with people psychologically disposed to mold themselves to their will.
Speckhard also said the others at the Catholic Worker house used Montoya’s faith to encourage her to action, and that she believes, based on her evaluation, that Montoya likely spent long stretches of her time with Reznicek in a “dissociative fugue.”
“It’s a bit of temporary insanity, in the sense of being temporarily absent,” she said.
Montoya, addressing the court before sentencing, also attributed her willingness to participate in the sabotage in part to her mental health.
“This has been a journey for me, recognizing that the trauma I sustained as a child affected my decision-making, which I had not understood before,” she said.
Ruby Montoya says she regrets her actions: ‘What I did was wrong’
Montoya told the judge she has cut off contact with her former activist associates and regrets her actions, which she called “not only misguided, but wrong and lawless.”
“What I did was wrong. It put me in danger, it put other people in danger, it is not something to be encouraged,” she said.
Ebinger said Montoya has presented her actions in different ways to different audiences. In public speaking events after the sabotage, she said, Montoya and Reznicek bragged about their deeds and encouraged others to take similar actions.
Previously:Iowa protest groups accused in federal lawsuit by Dakota Access pipeline developer
It was only much later, after Reznicek’s sentencing, that Montoya began describing to her therapists her time with her co-defendant using terms such as coercion and manipulation, Ebinger said.
“I do not find credible the account relied upon by the mental health professionals that she was in a fog, a dreamlike state, throughout the conspiracy, and unable to prevent herself from engaging in criminal conduct,” she said.
Still, Ebinger said she took into account Montoya’s childhood trauma, as well as her good conduct on pretrial release and general lack of other criminal record in arriving at her sentence. It’s two years shorter than Reznicek’s sentence, which Ebinger said reflected Reznicek’s greater criminal history and Ebinger’s assessment of their respective roles in the conspiracy.
Ebinger also ordered that Montoya and Reznicek pay nearly $3.2 million in restitution to Energy Transfer Partners.
Montoya, who had recently begun teaching third-graders at a school in Arizona, was remanded directly into custody after the hearing.
William Morris covers courts for the Des Moines Register. He can be contacted at wrmorris2@registermedia.com, 715-573-8166 or on Twitter at @DMRMorris.
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