Lusby, MD – Hours after two activists arrested for trespassing had their cases heard in court, an environmental organization is leveling charges of assault and endangerment against the police officers who responded to the incident.
The arrest of Heather Doyle, 31 of Washington, DC and Carling Sothoron, 29 of Baltimore, took place Tuesday morning, Feb. 3 at the staging site for the Dominion Cove Point Exportation project. The two women were in the process of scaling a crane at the work site.
According to the statement issued April 19 by Stopping Extraction and Exports Destruction (SEED), the women climbed the crane to hang a large banner reading, “Dominion, get out. Don’t frack Maryland. No gas exports. Save Cove Point.”
“They took this action to support the people whose lives would be put at risk with the completion of the Dominion Cove Point LNG [liquefied natural gas] export terminal and liquefaction plant, and also support people across the Marcellus shale who have been living with the ravages of fracking,” the SEED press release stated. “An important side of the story has not been told in order not to incriminate Doyle or Sothoron before their court appearances.”
The SEED missive identified the officers involved—Sgt. Vladimir Bortchevsky, Dfc. Robert Brady and Dfc. Stephen Esposito—calling their response to the incident “unprofessional, unsafe and violent.”
In a lengthy narrative, Doyle alleged rough treatment by the deputies, specifically Bortchevsky, who she accused of pressing down on her throat with his forearm after she was wrested away from the crane. “I was surrounded by cops watching this other cop do something to me,” Doyle stated. “There was no one there who could see what was happening to me and I was all alone at the bottom of the crane. He was assaulting me because he wanted to.”
A spokesperson for SEED, Kelly Canavan, told The Bay Net that no formal complaint has been filed at this time with the Calvert County Sheriff’s Office.
Canavan also confirmed that no lawsuit has been filed either. The legal action would likely be an option for Doyle, who pled guilty to trespassing and opted to serve her sentence in jail rather than be on unsupervised probation for three years.
Sothoron, who also pled guilty to trespassing, chose to pay a $300 fine and be on unsupervised probation for three years. A condition of the probation is to stay off of Dominion property and have no contact with the company’s employees.
Of Doyle and Sothoron, Calvert County Sheriff Mike Evans stated, “these people are lawbreakers. There were no complaints at the time about how the deputies did their jobs.”
Evans, who told The Bay Net he was made aware of the allegations Tuesday, April 21, denied that the deputies committed any egregious actions during the incident.
Brady and Esposito (pictured above) were recently honored by the Calvert County Government’s Employee Recognition Committee for their actions during the Feb. 3 incident.
Contact Marty Madden at marty.madden@thebaynet.com
