Beaver judge finds animal activist guilty of trespassing, disorderly conduct during Pioneer Day event

BEAVER — Several months after a St. George jury cleared two animal activists in a piglet theft case, another representative from the same organization was found guilty Tuesday by a judge in Beaver of trespassing and disorderly conduct at a Pioneer Day event last July at the city’s Main Street Park.

Direct Action Everywhere advocate Curtis Vollmar, left, and Utah Animal Rights Coalition Executive Director Jeremy Beckham stand as the guilty verdict is read in Vollmar’s trespassing and disorderly conduct trial at the Beaver County Justice Court, Beaver, Utah, April 25, 2023 | Photo by Chris Reed, St. George News

Curtis Vollmar, the legislation and social media manager for the animal advocacy group Direct Action Everywhere, was found guilty by Fifth District Judge Shadrach C. Bradshaw at the Beaver County Justice Court. While the trespass charge is a Class B misdemeanor with the potential for six months of jail time, Bradshaw sentenced Vollmar to a $850 fine for the two charges combined.

Vollmar, 36 of Berkeley, California, led a group from the organization known as DxE that distributed leaflets and spoke to residents at the event last July 23 in support of the defendants in the Smithfield Circle Four Farms trial that was taking place in St. George later that year.

The defendants were acquitted  last October of burglarizing the Smithfield facility in nearby Milford. Unlike that trial, there was no jury Tuesday and the judge made the ultimate decision and verdict. 

St. George News was not permitted to take video inside the courtroom but was allowed to take still photos during the first hour of the trial and during the verdict.

After the verdict Tuesday, Vollmar said “yeah, definitely” when asked by St. George News if he will appeal. 

“I feel that this company has a lot of power over this town,” Vollmar said of Smithfield Foods, which up until layoffs last year employed one of every four workers in the county according to local statistics, including Mayor Matt Robinson. “There’s probably a lot of political pressure to convict me at this court. But it’s just a justice court and I get a free do-over. So I feel like the next go at this will be a better, better outcome.” 

The judge agreed with an argument presented during the trial by Beaver County Deputy Attorney Leo Kanell that Main Street Park is private property. The city leases the land Main Street Park sits on from The Church of Jesus Christ of Latter-day Saints.

“If any business in Beaver County or anywhere in the country contacts law enforcement to tell them that they don’t want them to be allowed into their store, even though it’s a store available for the public to come in, they have every rhyme and reason to say, ‘I don’t want you in my store anymore. I don’t want you to come on my private property anymore.’ That’s what happened in this case,” Kanell said in his closing argument. “A religious organization that’s owning property has to be very careful not to allow political speech on that property. It could affect their tax-exempt status. And so the church has to prepare an agreement allowing the city to use the property for recreation purposes, but not, they have to be clear, none of this political speech be allowed.”

Beaver County Deputy Attorney Leo Kanell during Direct Action Everywhere advocate Curtis Vollmar’s trespassing and disorderly conduct trial at the Beaver County Justice Court, Beaver, Utah, April 25, 2023 | Photo by Chris Reed, St. George News

Neither Kanell nor Beaver County Attorney Von Christiansen made themselves available to speak to St. George News after the verdict. 

Vollmar’s attorney, Mary Corporon, rebutted that Main Street Park is a public facility and even on Pioneer Day, the First Amendment still applies. 

“It is leased by Beaver City for purposes of a public of being a public park. And the rules on a premises that’s owned by a private entity, but is reserved for use by a municipality, is that the First Amendment rights apply, including and especially political and religious speech,” Corporon said in court. “There’s nothing on the park that says you’re only here with permission from some private entity. It says it’s Beaver City and it says it’s a park. The only restrictions posted are no dogs and no smoking.”

Corporon, who also defended one of the two defendants at the October Circle Four Farms trial, told St. George News later that the judge’s decision doesn’t overrule a 2002 federal court decision that said the First Amendment still applies on land labeled as public even though a private party holds title to the land.

“We don’t have a written ruling or an opinion from the court other than a finding of guilty or not guilty,” Corporon said. “I wouldn’t presume to second guess what the judge might have been thinking or what the basis would be for his opinion.”

At least six members of Direct Action Everywhere, which also goes by DxE, were in the courtroom during the trial Tuesday morning that from beginning to verdict lasted around two-and-a-half hours. Among them was DxE co-founder Wayne Hsiung, who was one of two defendants acquitted last October by a St. George jury in the 2017 Circle Farms burglary case after that trial was relocated from Beaver.

Hsiung said without a jury, the judge’s biases may have gotten in the way.

Defense attorney Mary Corporon during Curtis Vollmar’s his trespassing and disorderly conduct trial at the Beaver County Justice Court, Beaver, Utah, April 25, 2023 | Photo by Chris Reed, St. George News

“Even the best of us have biases that we don’t recognize. And it’s extraordinarily difficult to get rid of those biases,” Hsiung said of Judge Bradshaw, who is a lifelong resident of Beaver and once owned a dairy farm. “I don’t doubt that the judge was trying to make a good faith decision, but the fact that this is a county where one to four employees work for Smithfield, the fact that this is a county that declared an economic emergency in the months before my trial when Curtis was out here passing some leaflet … those are all going to be factors in any human being’s decision, even the best of us.

“When the facts are more fully fleshed out before a jury and we have an opportunity for voir dire to screen out anyone who has any biases, I’m confident we’ll come to a different conclusion because I think people in this country do believe in the First Amendment,” Hsiung added.

Testimony during the trial

The prosecution presented four witnesses while the defense offered none of their own.

Dr. Lance Smith, Beaver Stake president for the Latter-day Saints church, said he saw the DxE members setting up a booth near the log cabin in the middle of the park and asked them to leave but said they weren’t willing to leave because they said they had authorization from Brent Blackner, the Pioneer Day chairperson. 

“They were persistent with being there but pleasant,” Smith testified. 

Prosecution witness Dr. Lance Smith, Beaver Stake president for The Church of Jesus Christ of Latter-day Saints, during Direct Action Everywhere advocate Curtis Vollmar’s trespassing and disorderly conduct trial at the Beaver County Justice Court, Beaver, Utah, April 25, 2023 | Photo by Chris Reed, St. George News

Smith said as soon as Blackner and officers arrived, Smith said the DxE members agreed to leave. However, he said an hour later he saw DxE members back“mingling through the crowd.”

Bruckner then testified that he remembered getting a call from someone saying they represented DxE before the event but told them only those affiliated with the church could set up a booth.

He also testified he was told during the event by those attending that the DxE members were a disruption. 

“People came up to me upset they were disrupting the festivities and asked what we were going to do about it,” Bruckner testified. “My whole concern was with families being displaced with employment is why I focused on them leaving area.”

On defense rebuttal, Bruckner said the free event was not limited to just those in the church and “open to everyone.”

“We didn’t exclude anyone as long as it’s peaceful and it adheres to our standards,” Bruckner said. 

After the trial, Vollmar said he was targeted specifically for his political views.

“I mean, some of the witnesses said that exactly. That it was the content of the speech,” Vollmar said. “At the time I had no idea that it was private property. And I’m still unsure that it is private property for all intents and purposes.”

Beaver’s mayor testified that he was selling hot dogs when he saw his “best friend” Smith speaking with the DxE members and went to aid him in asking them to leave. 

Main Street Park in Beaver, Utah, April 25, 2023 | Photo by Chris Reed, St. George News

Robinson also responded to a question from the defense that there was nothing on the city’s website saying the Pioneer Day celebration at the park was a private event or that the park itself is private property.

“Any individual who would like to celebrate is welcome,” Robinson testified. “There is no signage it is private property.”

Beaver Sherrif Deputy Tyler Schena, who is also a member of the Beaver City Council, said he escorted Vollmar and the DxE members out of the park and told them they could be in the area next to the park on the sidewalk between the post office and the library. 

“Everyone was cordial and calm,” Schena testified. 

He said he later came back to that same sidewalk area to see Vollmar interacting with two other officers. 

Direct Action Everywhere advocate Curtis Vollmar, during his trespassing and disorderly conduct trial at the Beaver County Justice Court, Beaver, Utah, April 25, 2023 | Photo by Chris Reed, St. George News

That interaction, seen in a previous St. George News story from video provided by DxE, was not mentioned during Tuesday’s trial other than Schena saying he saw the interaction from afar. 

Vollmar told St. George News the testimony didn’t support the ultimate verdict that he was disruptive or trespassing and also noted that just about all the witnesses describe him and other DxE members as “cordial.”

“There was almost nothing about the disorderly conduct. The evidence that came out against the trespass … there was not a whole lot of it,” Vollmar said. “So it’s clear to me that there’s other forces at work here.”

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