Subject: AIDS activist goes to court
From: [email-masked]
Date: Tue, 6 Feb 1996 03:29:41 -0500

FOR IMMEDIATE RELEASE
February 5, 1996 

CONTACTS:
Michael Bellefountaine:  (415) 487-9954
Todd Swindell:  (415) 864-8355  

ACT UP SF Protestor Faces Trial for G.O.P. Office Takeover
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AIDS activist plans necessity defense over charges stemming from Helms'
stalling of AIDS funding

San Francisco  -- Eight months after a dozen members of ACT UP San Francisco
seized the county's Republican headquarters in protest of Jesse Helms'
stalling of the reauthorization of the Ryan White CARE Act, HIV-positive
demonstrator David Pasquarelli still faces criminal prosecution and possible
jail time. The activist, who is HIV-positive, has refused to accept any
settlement offers and intends to fight all charges using the necessity
defense. His jury trial, originally scheduled to begin on February 5th, has
been postponed until 9:00 am on February 26th in courtroom 17 of 850 Bryant
Street.

During the July 11th office takeover, demonstrators covered the office with
"bloody" red-painted handprints, fake "AIDS money", and stickers criticizing
what ACT UP calls "the deadly policies and agenda of the Republican party."
Other protestors hung a banner demanding reauthorization of the Ryan White
CARE Act and strung up effigies of G.O.P. lawmakers. Four AIDS activists were
arrested.

Those arrested were originally charged with felony counts of vandalism,
burglary and conspiracy and were alleged to have committed $15,000 to $20,000
in damage to the G.O.P.'s Van Ness headquarters. However, after months of
legal proceedings, the burglary charges were dropped and the remaining
felonies were reduced to misdemeanors by Judge James McBride who determined
that the Republicans' witnesses and damage estimates were unreliable. Damage
estimates currently stand at approximately $250 per defendant.

ACT UP members state that they are outraged at the progress of the legal
proceedings which have been mired in accusations of prosecutorial misconduct,
intentionally inflated damage estimates and inappropriate felony charges.
Activists assert that they are tired of delays, are ready to present their
necessity defense to a San Francisco jury, and look forward to using the
legal system as a forum for creating a sense of urgency around the AIDS
crisis.

"We have had enough business as usual when it comes to this pandemic; both in
Congress and in this courtroom. In fifteen short years AIDS has emerged as
the number one killer of young men and women. Our actions at G.O.P.
headquarters occurred in the context of this very real emergency and were
provoked by a notorious bigot who is hell-bent on driving us into the grave,"
states G.O.P. protestor Michael Bellefountaine. "We were down to the wire
with reauthorization; all traditional efforts to free funding had failed. We
were clearly acting in self-defense and we intend to prove it."

The necessity defense recognizes that when an individual acts with a sincere
and reasonable belief that the action undertaken is necessary to avert a
greater harm, the law declines to penalize the conduct. Presently, two of the
original four codefendants have tentatively accepted a pretrial diversion
settlement. In addition, ill health forced the remaining HIV-positive
codefendant to drop his court defense earlier this year. Pasquarelli,
however, intends to fight the charges.

ACT UP SF plans to demonstrate that the Ryan White CARE Act is the major
source of federal AIDS relief funding; that the potential loss of funds by
failing to reauthorize the CARE Act created an atmosphere of fear and crisis
in the HIV community as exemplified by reports in the media and testimony by
AIDS advocates; and that the possible failure of Ryan White to be
reauthorized was an unprecedented act of hostility toward the AIDS community
that placed lives in jeopardy by threatening the collapse of San Francisco's
health care system. As part of Pasquarelli's defense, activists intend to
solicit and subpoena the testimony of national, state and local health
officials, AIDS advocates and activists.

In setting the stage for use of the necessity defense, ACT UP San Francisco
members point to dire predictions issued by HIV-positive San Francisco Health
Commissioner Michael Shriver as evidence of the desperation and fear felt by
the AIDS community. Shriver labeled Helms' stalling of CARE Act
reauthorization a "hate crime" and was quoted in the Examiner as stating that
if San Francisco were to lose the $43 million in AIDS relief funding "the
city's health system as we know it will collapse."

Members assert that the prosecution of the "ACT UP Four" has cost the city
thousands of dollars that should instead be spent helping those with
HIV-disease. ACT UP SF urges concerned citizens to call District Attorney
Terence Hallinan, who was elected on his promise to avoid prosecuting
nonviolent crimes, at (415) 553-1741 and express their outrage that
desperate, dying people who are under attack by Republican bigots shouldn't
be criminally prosecuted for defending themselves.

For more information contact Michael Bellefountaine at (415) 487-9954 or Todd
Swindell at (415) 864-8355. ACT UP San Francisco's defense attorney Mark
Vermeulen can be reached at (415) 824-7533.

ACT UP San Francisco / 1388 Haight Street, #218 / San Francisco, CA 94117 /
Phone: (415) 522-2907 / Fax: (415) 834-0243 / Email: [email-masked]