Man facing charges in Spence lab case will remain in jail

A federal magistrate judge agreed Wednesday to temporarily stay the release of a Minneapolis man facing federal conspiracy charges in connection with the 2004 animal-rights vandalism on the UI campus.

Scott DeMuth, 22, will remain detained until at least 4 p.m. Monday, a federal magistrate ordered. The emergency stay of release will allow federal prosecutors a chance to appeal a release order issued Tuesday.

The release order would have allowed DeMuth, a University of Minnesota graduate student, to return to Minneapolis while the federal case is pending. As part of that release, he was to be placed on home detention and remain on a GPS monitor at all times.

Federal prosecutors, however, consider DeMuth a domestic terrorist and say his release poses a risk to the public. They fear he would go “underground” if released from federal custody.

“Defendant's writings, literature, and conduct suggest that he is an anarchist and associated with the ALF movement. Therefore, he is a domestic terrorist,” federal prosecutors wrote in a motion filed Wednesday in U.S. District Court in Davenport which seeks revocation of DeMuth's release. “As such, he poses a serious of risk of danger to those he opposes and to law enforcement as well as a risk of flight to avoid prosecution.”

A journal and a lock-picking device seized during a search last year link DeMuth to the 2004 animal rights vandalism, federal authorities have said. The items were seized during an investigation into protesters at the Republican National convention in Minneapolis last year.

DeMuth was indicted last week in federal court in Davenport and has been held in the Muscatine County Jail. He was initially in custody on a civil contempt of court charge after refusing to testify before a grand jury.

The Animal Liberation Front, an underground animal-rights activist group, claimed responsibility for the 2004 damage to lab equipment and the release of 88 mice and 313 rats used in psychology department experiments on the UI campus. The UI estimated damage to Spence Laboratories and Seashore Hall, in excess of $450,000.