Political activist pleads guilty in window-smashing
By The Denver Post
Posted: 12/22/2009 01:00:00 AM MST
Updated: 12/22/2009 02:13:24 PM MST
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Activist Maurice Joseph Schwenkler, 24, pleaded guilty Monday to a second-degree misdemeanor for smashing windows at the Colorado Democratic Party headquarters last summer.
He received one year of probation and was ordered to pay $5,000 in restitution for the Aug. 25 incident at the party headquarters at West Eighth Avenue and Santa Fe Drive, according to the Denver district attorney's office.
Schwenkler and an accomplice, who was never identified, took a hammer to 11 plate-glass windows. Police caught them in the act, and Schwenkler was arrested.
Anarchist websites across the country raised money for Schwenkler's $5,000 bail, and identified him as "a transgendered anarchist" using the name Ariel Attack. Authorities have consistently identified him as male.
The gay, lesbian and transgender protest group Denver Bash Back characterized Schwenkler as one of its "friends and comrades."
Initially, Democratic Party officials blamed conservative opponents of health care reform for stoking animosity directed at Democrats.
Then it became known that Schwenkler had previously worked for a Democratic candidate. Conservatives characterized the attack as an attempt to frame Republicans with the blame.
Bash Back protested the Republican and Democratic national conventions last year.
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http://www.denverpost.com/ci_14045675#ixzz0aac2MxRU
