(Photo, additional information from our newspartner, Channel 13, WHO-TV)
Two Iowa women admit they set fire to and damaged equipment along the Dakota Access Pipeline route through Iowa in November of last year. Twenty-seven year old Ruby Montoya and 35 year old Jessica Reznicek admitted guilt before the Iowa Utilities Board today (Monday) in Des Moines.
The two began causing damage to an Iowa Utilities Board sign, shortly after they confessed to causing more than $1 million in damage to the Bakken oil pipeline. State Troopers arrested them when they began to cause damage to the sign.
Montoya and Reznicek are each charged with criminal mischief in connection with Monday’s incident.
The two read a lengthy prepared statement outside the offices of the Iowa Utilities Board Monday morning, confessing to piercing portions of the steel pipeline in Iowa and South Dakota as well as setting fires to damage construction equipment. The following is an excerpt from the comments.
"We stand here now today as witnesses of peaceful, nonviolent direct action. Our actions have been those of necessity and humility. We feel we have done nothing to be ashamed of. For some reason the courts and ruling government value corporate property and profit over our inherent human rights to clean water and land.
We are speaking publicly to empower others to act boldly, with purity of heart, to dismantle the infrastructures which deny us our rights to water, land and liberty. We as civilians have seen the repeated failures of the government and it is our duty to act with responsibility and integrity, risking our own liberty for the sovereignty of us all.
Some may view these actions as violent, but be not mistaken. We acted from our hearts and never threatened human life nor personal property. What we did do was fight a private corporation that has run rampantly across our country seizing land and polluting our nation's water supply. You may not agree with our tactics, but you can clearly see the necessity of them in light of the broken federal government and the corporations they protect."
Ruby Montoya and Jessica Reznicek
WHO-TV reports after they two women confessed, they started prying letters off of the Iowa Utilities Board sign. That’s when the Iowa State Patrol took the women into custody.
Attorney Bill Quigley tells WHO Radio News the women plan to represent themselves in court. Quigley is acting as "stand by" counsel. He says the women will likely face prison time.