Victor VanOrden
July 2012 LAST UPDATE : THANK YOU ALL!
You are reading this if you are wondering what has happened to Victor and Kellie. Kellie and Victor are now happily living in Maryland with their family. Thank you all for your support and gracious efforts to help these two wonderful activists. They are eternally grateful to you all. Victor has incurred yet one last legal bill which arrived just a couple days ago to his house. It’s from the jail in Iowa that he was locked up in, and is in the amount of a couple thousand. They charged him $50 for every night that he was there. If you would like to donate any further money you can do so by sending a personal check or money order to: Bonnie VanOrden (this is Victor’s mom who is handling all the legal fees) 5145 Porterstown Road Keedysville, MD 21756 Thanks!
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Update 09th.05.2012:
Victor VanOrden has been released after serving only three months of his five year sentence! :)
Awesome news:
Victor has been granted parole and should be released today. In February he received an exorbitant sentence of five years for the “crime” of cutting a fence and opening a single cage at the Circle K Fur Farm in Sioux City, Iowa. This week, the judge granted Victor parole, reducing his sentence by over 90%.
His codefendant (and wife) Kellie received a 30 day sentence for the same action. She was released last month.
Kellie and Victor’s case was somewhat unusual in that it was prosecuted on the state level, and not federal. Generally, the feds prefer to take politically charged and / or very high profile cases – particularly animal liberation or eco-sabotage cases. There can be advantages and disadvantages to each, depending on the specifics of a crime, although generally federal cases carry much longer sentences. In this case, Victor and Kellie were fortunate to be charged not just by the state, but a state which has parole, allowing them to be free after serving relatively short sentences.
Welcome home.
In the coming days, I’ll be posting new details that have not been made public about the events that led to their arrest.
In the meantime, view an aerial image of the Circle K Fur Farm.