Man freed from prison after 9 years when FOIA requests reveal FBI hid documents

Eric Taylor McDavid, before he went to jail. He looks very different now.


Eric Taylor McDavid, before he went to jail. He looks very different now.

Eric McDavid, a convicted 'eco-terrorist' who spent 9 years in jail, has been freed after Freedom of Information Act requests revealed documents that suggest the FBI hid evidence from his defense attorneys.

From the Sacramento Bee:

Until this week, the federal government officially considered Eric Taylor McDavid a threat to the nation, a radical eco-terrorist who plotted to bomb or torch the Nimbus Dam, a U.S. Forest Service lab and cellphone towers in the Sacramento region.

The former college student and house-framer from Foresthill was so dangerous that, after a 10-day trial in Sacramento in 2007, he was sentenced to nearly 20 years in federal prison in a case touted by the FBI as a shining example of its success in fighting domestic terrorism.

Then, the government changed its mind, conceding that thousands of pages of evidence that should have been given to McDavid's defense attorney years ago – including love notes to a young woman who turned out to be an FBI plant – had instead been secretly held in an FBI file in Sacramento until recently. The best course of action, the government ultimately decided, was to set McDavid free.

"Convicted 'eco-terrorist' freed amid claims FBI hid evidence" [sacbee via @cjciaramella]