Judi Bari Biography, Age, Height, Wife, Net Worth and Family

Anderson wrote regular columns in the Advertiser accusing the supporters of the late Bari of lying by their continued support of the industry/FBI theory. Gehrman said he was approached in 2005 by Jan Maxwell, a longtime friend of Pam Davis. Maxwell said that Davis had told her that Bari had suggested a murder-for-hire solicitation against Sweeney. This seemed to place the solicitations to Sutley within a larger pattern. Gehrman presented a summary of his knowledge about the case, which he reprinted in the Advertiser in 2008.

A critical biography of Bari titled The Secret Wars of Judi Bari (2005), by investigative journalist Kate Coleman, drew fierce criticism by many supporters. But a review in Environmental History said that the author “succeeds in offering a balanced view of her life.”

On May 20, 2003, the Oakland City Council unanimously voted a resolution establishing Judi Bari Day. They said:

In the weeks before the bombing, Bari had received numerous death threats related to her anti-logging activism, which she reported to local police. After the bombing, her attorney turned over such written threats to the FBI for investigation. As revealed in the 2002 trial evidence, neither the Oakland police nor the FBI ever investigated these.

Years before, in 2002, at the conclusion of the Bari/Cherney civil rights trial, Stephen Talbot had already publicly reported on Salon.com that Bari had confided in him about her suspicions of Sweeney and the car bombing, as well as her knowledge that he had firebombed the Santa Rosa airport in 1980. She also said that Sweeney had abused her during their marriage.

The bombing of Bari and Cherney has never been solved. Following the 2002 trial and award of damages, Cherney and supporters sought access to the remains of the partially intact Cloverdale mill bomb held by the FBI. Investigators believed that similarities between it and the remains of the pipe bomb in the car showed they were constructed by the same maker. They hoped to find DNA evidence that could be analyzed by current technology and reveal a suspect. In 2012, a federal judge ordered the FBI not to destroy the remains of that pipe bomb, as they had planned. Ben Rosenfeld, attorney for Cherney, requested DNA analysis by an outside lab. The FBI said they had never performed such testing. The judge ordered such testing.

The suit finally went to trial in 2002. After deliberation for two weeks, a jury found in favor of Bari’s and Cherney’s federal civil lawsuit. They concluded the pair’s civil rights had been violated by several named individuals from the FBI and Oakland Police Department.

In 2001 DNA evidence was presented from documents, including the “Lord’s Avenger” letter, which is believed strongly tied to Bari’s assailant and yielded a fingerprint, was presented, by joint agreement of the Bari advocates and the FBI. It does not match DNA samples obtained from Sutley. Mike Sweeney reportedly had not submitted a DNA sample. It is not known if law enforcement requested him to submit one.

In 1999 a bill was passed to establish the Headwaters Forest Reserve (H.R. 2107, Title V. Sec.501.) under administration by the Bureau of Land Management. This protected 7,472 acres (30.24 km) of mixed old-growth and previously harvested forest. It was a project that Bari had long supported.

Several years later, the Northern California “Timber Wars” heated up again in 1998. Earth First! members were dissatisfied with the final agreement that established the Headwaters Forest Reserve. By a bill passed in 1997, the government was authorized to acquire and protect 7,472 acres (30.24 km), rather than the much larger portion proposed for more than a decade. The division between the timber community and Earth First! became sharper than ever. “Anarchists” and other advocates of violence, such as Rodney Coronado, a convicted arsonist and Earth Liberation Front member, gained prominence within Earth First!. Such members threatened both the industrial equipment and facilities of timber companies, and individuals at their private residences. After Bari died in 1997, she had the status of a major leader in Earth First! lore, but timber protests moved away from the community-based collaboration that she had tried to develop and present

In 1994 Bari was part of a congressional advisory committee, chartered by Congressman Dan Hamburg (D-CA), trying to develop a proposal for a Headwaters Forest Reserve of 44,000 acres. Efforts had been underway to protect this area for more than a decade. Their proposal included a compensation clause for those lumber workers who would have been laid off following establishment of this extensive reserve. The bill based on the “large reserve” proposal died in Congress after Hamburg lost his 1994 re-election bid; during a midterm upheaval, he was defeated by the Republican former incumbent of his seat. Instead, a 7472-acre forest reserve was authorized by a bill passed on November 14, 1997, shortly after Bari’s death.

On March 2, 1997, Bari died of breast cancer at her home near Willits. A memorial service in her honor was attended by an estimated 1,000 people.

In 1997, Bari and Cherney sued the law enforcement officers named in the civil rights suit for conspiracy to violate the activists’ First and Fourth Amendment rights. On October 15 that year, the agents lost their bid for immunity from prosecution.

Stepping back from Earth First! leadership because of dealing with inoperable cancer, by the end of 1996, Bari was working as a para-legal and hosting a weekly public radio show. Before her death, she organized the Redwood Summer Justice Project, a non-profit organization to coordinate political and financial support for the suit she and Cherney were conducting.

In a reaction to efforts to tie Sutley to the bombing, some former Bari supporters publicly shifted their suspicion toward Sweeney. In 1995 Ed Gehrman, a teacher and publisher of Flatland, a small magazine in Fort Bragg, California, had also participated in Redwood Summer protests. (It has since become defunct.) He became concerned about the controversy over Sutley. Initially suspecting Sutley, Gehrman questioned him directly about it. Sutley denied being involved. In addition, he said that in 1989, Pam Davis, a friend of Bari, had on three separate occasions offered him $5000 to kill her ex-husband Sweeney. In response, Bari said in a radio broadcast that the apparent solicitation was a joke misunderstood by her friend, who had conveyed the offer to Sutley.

The FBI’s assertion that the bombing was an accidental detonation was shown to be completely implausible in the face of physical evidence. Bari and her supporters began to suspect the assailant was associated with the FBI. Within the next year, Bari developed the theory that the bomber was an acquaintance whom she had suspected of being an FBI informant. From depositions taken in 1994 for Bari and Cherney’s federal civil rights lawsuit, they learned that the May 24 bombing of Bari’s car bore a close resemblance to “crime scenes” staged by the FBI in a “bomb school” held in redwood country earlier that year. Bari and followers believed this supported their idea that the bombing could be attributed to the FBI.

Bari became a political writer as part of her interests in feminism, class struggle, and ecology. In May 1992, in an article published in Ms. magazine, she claimed to have feminized Earth First!. The radical environmentalist group was founded by men. In its early days, they pursued sabotage that damaged equipment and threatened the lives of timber workers, a series of actions known as “monkeywrenching”. Bari emphasized non-violent actions and public education in an effort to build collaboration in the region.

The FBI school was intended to train local and state police officers on how to investigate bomb scenes. The school taught that bomb explosions inside a vehicle often indicated the knowing, criminal transportation of homemade bombs, which went off accidentally. They noted that it was difficult to break into a locked car (that has changed for some brands!) in order to plant a bomb. By 1991, evidence conclusively showed that the bomb was placed directly beneath Bari’s seat, as she had said from the day of the accident.

In 1991, Stephen Talbot, KQED reporter and documentary producer, made a documentary titled Who Bombed Judi Bari?. During the production, he discovered circumstantial evidence and heard suspicions expressed by acquaintances of Bari that her ex-husband Mike Sweeney should be considered a suspect. Bari told Talbot in confidence that she also had doubts about her former husband, and that he abused her during their marriage. She later publicly denied these statements. Talbot named Sweeney and others as possible suspects in the bombing, but in 1991 did not attribute any statements to Bari. After her death, he felt released from his journalist’s protection of her as a source. He wrote about Sweeney as a suspect more directly in a 2002 article published on Salon.com.

Bari strongly criticized Talbot’s 1991 film in her article, “Who bought Steve Talbot?,” published in the San Francisco Weekly and the Anderson Valley Advertiser. Talbot also had reported a 1989 letter signed by “Argus” that was sent to the Chief of the Ukiah Police Department, offering to be an informant against Bari regarding marijuana dealing. Bari claimed in her article that the “Argus” letter had to have been written by Irv Sutley, a Peace and Freedom Party activist whom she had met in 1988. Attention had also been focused on two other threatening letters: a “no second warning” death threat letter sent to Bari about a month before the bombing, and what became known as the “Lord’s Avenger” letter sent to the Santa Rosa Press Democrat immediately after the bombing.

Bari and Cherney had filed a federal civil rights suit in 1991 claiming that the FBI and police officers falsely arrested the pair in relation to the bombing of her car in May 1990. They were accused of carrying the bomb to use for other purposes. Bari and Cherney said that law enforcement was trying to frame them as terrorists so as to discredit their political organizing to protect the redwood forests.

In her book, Coleman outlined a case that Sweeney, Bari’s ex-husband, had planted the bomb in order to kill her. This thesis had been suggested by others, namely Stephen Talbot, in his 1991 documentary, and more specifically in his 2002 article on Salon.com, in which he revealed statements that Bari had made to him in 1991. He felt her death lifted his responsibility to protect her confidences.

Bari suffered severe injuries on 24 May 1990 in Oakland, California, when a pipe bomb went off under her seat in her car. She was driving with colleague Darryl Cherney, who had minor injuries. They were arrested by Oakland Police, aided by the FBI, who accused them of transporting a bomb for terrorist purposes. While those charges were dropped, in 1991 the pair filed suit against the Oakland Police Department and FBI for violations of their civil rights during the investigation of the bombing. A jury found in their favor when the case went to trial in 2002, and damages were awarded to Bari’s estate and Cherney. Bari had died of cancer in 1997. The bombing has not been solved.

In 1990, the Sierra Club withdrew its support from legislation amending California Forest Practice Rules and moving forward with a process to establish a Headwaters Forest preserve on Pacific Lumber Company land. They submitted a voter initiative, Proposition 130, dubbed “Forests Forever.” The timber industry was strongly opposed to it. In response, environmentalists began organizing Redwood Summer, a campaign of nonviolent protests focused on slowing harvest of redwood forests in Northern California until such forests gained extra protections under Proposition 130. They named their campaign in honor of the 1964 Freedom Summer of the Civil Rights Movement. Bari was instrumental in recruiting demonstrators from college campuses across the United States. But on November 6, 1990, Proposition 130 was defeated by California voters, with 52.13% against. Opponents emphasized the disruptive activities of Redwood Summer, which interfered with timber workers, and the support of Earth First! for Proposition 130. It had been accused of sabotage and violence against workers in the past.

On April 22, 1990, a group called Earth Night Action Group sabotaged power poles in southern Santa Cruz County, causing power outages. Upon hearing of that incident, Bari reportedly said, “Desperate times call for desperate measures,” and “So what if some ice cream melted?” Observers interpreted her statements as approval of sabotage, and thought Earth First! might still be involved in such activities. A provocative flyer was publicized that had been written by Cherney: he called for “Earth Night” actions, and it featured images of a monkey wrench, an earth mover, and figures representing saboteurs in the night. Cherney said the flyer was facetious. The identities of members of the Earth Night Action Group has never been established; their relationship to Earth First! was a matter of speculation.

On May 9, 1990, a failed incendiary pipe bomb was discovered in the Louisiana Pacific sawmill in Cloverdale. A hand-lettered sign, saying “L-P screws millworkers”, had been placed outside the mill. Responsibility for the bomb was never established.

On May 22, 1990, Bari met with local loggers to agree on ground rules for nonviolence during the Redwood Summer demonstrations. In the early afternoon of May 23, 1990, Bari started a road trip to Santa Cruz to organize for Redwood Summer and related musical events. She stopped for a press conference in Ukiah and for a meeting at the Seeds of Peace collective house in Berkeley.

On May 24, 1990, in Oakland, California, Bari and Darryl Cherney were traveling in her car when it was blown up by a pipe bomb under her seat. Bari was driving and severely injured by the blast. Cherney suffered minor injuries. Bari was arrested for transporting explosives while she was still in critical condition with a fractured pelvis and other major injuries.

In late July 1990, the Alameda County District Attorney declined to press charges against Bari and Cherney, claiming insufficient evidence. But Bari and Cherney filed a civil rights suit in 1991 for violations by the FBI and Oakland Police because of the arrests and search warrants carried out on their properties. The trial was not concluded until 2002. Bari died of breast cancer in 1997. The jury found that their civil rights had been violated. The court made an award of $4.4 million to Cherney and Bari’s estate.

Through the early 1990s, many activists believed that the bombing was the work of either the FBI or other opponents of Bari’s Earth First! activities. Irv Sutley was suspected as the hitman. But Bari’s attempts to shape accounts of the bombing were alienating supporters and raised suspicions that she was hiding something. Bruce Anderson of the Advertiser was among those put off by her assertions. He knew that the 1988 divorce had been bitter. While he thought that some of her post-bombing behavior was odd, he continued to support her public position.

Redwood Summer ended with Earth First! claiming success because they had trained so many volunteers in nonviolent resistance. But the numbers of participants in protests were smaller than organizers had hoped for. In addition, by September, the New York Times was reporting that antagonism between environmentalists and timber workers seemed to have increased. State voters defeated Proposition 130, which would have restricted logging, on November 6, 1990. The campaign against it had emphasized its support by Earth First!.

While neither agency would admit wrongdoing, the jury held both liable, finding that “[B]oth agencies admitted they had amassed intelligence on the couple before the bombing.” This evidence supported the jury’s finding that both the FBI and the Oakland police persecuted Bari and Cherney as potential terrorists rather than conducting a full investigation to try to find the perpetrators. They were trying to discredit and sabotage Earth First! and the planned Redwood Summer of 1990, thereby violating the plaintiffs’ First Amendment rights and justifying the large award.

Many timber workers believed that the environmentalists were threatening their livelihoods. At this time, environmentalists were backing their legal suits against timber overcutting by staging blockades of job sites in the woods and tree sitting. Loggers saw such actions as harassment. Confrontations between loggers and demonstrators were often heated and sometimes violent. Reactions to Bari’s involvement in the protests were severe: her car was rammed by a logging truck in 1989, and she received death threats.

In August 1989, environmentalist Mem Hill suffered a broken nose in a protest confrontation with loggers in the woods. She filed a legal suit accusing a logger of assault, and claiming law enforcement did not protect her from attack.

In 1988, Bari was instrumental in starting Local 1 of the Industrial Workers of the World (IWW), which allied with Earth First! in protests against cutting old growth redwoods. Bari used her labor organizing background to run a workshop on the Industrial Workers of the World at an Earth First! rendezvous in California. Through the formation of EF!–IWW Local 1, she sought to bring together environmentalists and timber workers who were concerned about the harvest rate by the timber industry. She believed they had interests in common.

Differences emerged between Bari and her husband over their political paths and diverging lives. He headed a recycling company in the county. They struggled to reconcile political action with the obligations of parenting. In 1988, with a divorce between herself and her husband underway, she met Darryl Cherney

Five days after the bombing, on May 29, while Bari was still in hospital, Mike Geniella of the Santa Rosa Press Democrat received a letter claiming responsibility for both the bomb in Bari’s car and a partially detonated one set a week before at the Cloverdale lumber mill. Written in an ornate, biblical style with misogynistic language, the letter was signed “The Lord’s Avenger.” It said the writer had been outraged by Bari’s statements and behavior in December 1988, when she opposed an anti-abortion protest at a Planned Parenthood clinic in Ukiah, California. The letter described the construction of the two bombs in great detail.

Based on content of the letter, law enforcement investigated Bill Staley, a self-styled preacher, Louisiana Pacific mill worker, and former professional football player who had been prominent at the 1988 anti-abortion demonstration. Staley was eventually cleared of suspicion in the bombing. While the letter’s author gave accurate details about the bombs’ construction, investigators found the explanation of how the bomb was placed in Bari’s car to be implausible. Both supporters and detractors of Bari’s theory of the bombing being an FBI/industry plot, which had been publicized, concluded that the bomb builder sent the letter in an effort to divert attention to Staley.

On May 8, 1987, a sawmill accident occurred at the Louisiana Pacific mill in Cloverdale, California. Mill worker George Alexander nearly died of injuries suffered when a saw blade struck a spike in a log being milled, generating shrapnel. Adverse publicity resulted.

In 1986, Houston millionaire Charles Hurwitz acquired Pacific Lumber Company, with assets in Northern California, including in redwood forests. He doubled the company’s rate of timber harvesting as a means of paying off the acquisition cost. This enraged environmentalists. The federal government also investigated the transaction because of Hurwitz’s use of junk bonds. Activist protests against old-growth timber harvesting by Pacific Lumber became the focus of Earth First! in the following years.

Around 1985, Bari moved north with her husband and two children to the vicinity of Redwood Valley in Mendocino County, California. It was an area of old timber towns, such as Eureka and Fortuna, and a new wave of hippies and young counter-culture adults who migrated here from urban areas.

During the early to mid-1980s, Bari devoted herself to Pledge of Resistance, a group that opposed US policies in Central America. She was a self-proclaimed virtuoso on the bullhorn. She edited, wrote, and drew cartoons for political leaflets and publications.

In 1979, Bari and Sweeney married and settled in Santa Rosa, California. They had two daughters together, Lisa (1981) and Jessica (1985). The couple divorced in 1988 and shared custody of their children.

Bari moved to the Bay Area in Northern California, which was a center of political activism. In 1978 she met her future husband Michael Sweeney at a labor organizers’ conference. They shared an interest in radical politics. Sweeney had graduated from Stanford University, and for a time in the early 1970s had been a member of the Maoist group Venceremos, which had mostly Chicano members. He had been married before.

Judith Beatrice Bari (1949–1997) was an American environmentalist, feminist, and labor leader, primarily active in Northern California after moving to the state in the mid-1970s. In the 1980s and 1990s, she was the principal organizer of Earth First! campaigns against logging in the ancient redwood forests of Mendocino County and related areas. She also organized Industrial Workers of the World Local 1 in an effort to bring together timber workers and environmentalists of Earth First! in common cause. Many workers felt threatened by the environmentalists’ efforts to limit logging, and industry owners opposed her efforts.

Bari was born on November 7, 1949 and was raised in Silver Spring, Maryland, the daughter of mathematician Ruth Aaronson Bari, who became a recognized mathematician, and diamond setter Arthur Bari. Her parents were Jewish and Italian in ancestry, respectively. The elder Baris were both active in left-wing politics; they advocated for civil rights and opposed the Vietnam War. Judi Bari was the second of three daughters; her older sister is Gina Kolata, a science journalist for the New York Times; and younger is Martha Bari, an art historian.