5 Activists Enter Guilty Pleas in Sabotage Plots : Courts: One is Earth First! co-founder. Judge says he will review their bargain with prosecutors.

An environmental activist pleaded guilty Tuesday to federal charges in an alleged plot to sabotage nuclear facilities in three states, and four co-defendants entered guilty pleas to lesser charges, but the judge did not immediately accept the plea bargain.

The defendants, including the co-founder of the radical environmental group Earth First!, entered their pleas in the middle of their federal court trial.

U.S. District Judge Robert Broomfield continued the trial until Sept. 10, saying he would decide before then whether to accept the deal.

Prosecutor Roslyn Moore-Silver said the agreement called for all the pleas to be accepted as a package or they would be withdrawn and the trial would resume.

The government accused the defendants of conspiring in January, 1989, to damage power lines and transmission towers serving the Rocky Flats nuclear weapons plant outside Denver, the Diablo Canyon Nuclear Generating Facility near San Luis Obispo and the Palo Verde Nuclear Generating Station west of Phoenix.

The acts never were carried out.

Defense attorneys argued that their clients were entrapped as part of a government plan to silence Dave Foreman, 44, of Tucson, who helped found the 11-year-old group Earth First!

Foreman pleaded guilty to one count of conspiracy. Under the agreement, sentencing on the felony charge would be delayed five years. He then would enter into an alternative plea agreement or plead guilty to a misdemeanor, deprivation of government property.

The other defendants’ pleas involved an alleged attempt to cut 12 pylons holding up a ski lift at the Snowbowl Ski Resort near Flagstaff. They are Mark Davis, 40; Margaret Millett, 37; Ilse Asplund, 37, and Marc Baker, 39. All are from Prescott.

Here are their pleas and possible sentences:

* Davis, one count of malicious destruction of property, six years in prison and a $250,000 fine.

* Millett, one count of aiding and abetting malicious destruction of property, three years in prison and a $250,000 fine.

* Baker and Asplund, one count each of failing to report a felony, a year and a day in prison and a $250,000 fine.

Opening arguments began June 19 with a scheduled recess in late July. The trial had been expected to run into mid-October.

In an interview late Tuesday, Foreman said he will continue to promote conservation but with “more mainstream” groups, such as the Sierra Club and the Nature Conservancy.

Earth First! is a loosely knit group that uses a clenched fist as its logo and features the motto “No Compromise in the Defense of Mother Earth.”