More than a year and a half after a group of pro-Palestinian activists were accused of causing extensive property damage at Stanford University’s executive offices, five of the original defendants are set to stand trial next month on felony vandalism charges.
The five defendants proceeding to trial are Maya Burke, German Gonzalez, Taylor McCann, Hunter Taylor Black and Amy Zhai.
The rest of original 12 defendants have entered a court-supervised mental health diversion program that allows them to avoid criminal prosecution.
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The remaining defendants, who have either accepted a plea agreement or entered a diversion program, include John Richardson, Zoe Edelman, Eliana Fuchs and Isabella Terrazas.
During Monday’s hearing, Deputy District Attorney Rob Baker objected to allowing the group to split their cases and accept the reduced charges.
“The defendants have made no efforts to repay or reimburse Stanford for the damage that they caused,” Baker told Ryan. “This whole case was the defendants trying to impose their will on Stanford University.”
Defense attorney Jeff Wozniak, representing Guimarin and appearing for Pennington, pushed back, describing Baker’s characterization of the plea deal as unfounded.
“There has been extensive discussion, and the people who are accepting your offer are electing not to go to trial,” he told the judge.
Judge Ryan ultimately allowed the defendants to move forward with the plea offer. Details of the agreement were not immediately available and will be addressed in January, after procedural questions about severing the defendants’ cases are resolved next week.
Hundreds of students nationwide have been arrested in Gaza-related campus protests since the war began, but only a small fraction have faced felony charges or been sent to trial. Attorneys for the Stanford defendants — as well as activists — have accused the Santa Clara County District Attorney’s Office of seeking overly punitive penalties for what they describe as a free-speech protest.
A spokesperson for District Attorney Jeff Rosen said in an email following a Nov. 17 hearing that “we look forward to presenting this case to a jury.”
Rosen has previously argued that the protesters crossed a line when they broke into and damaged the office. “Speech is protected by the First Amendment. Vandalism is prosecuted under the penal code,” he said.
Prosecutors estimate the damage from the occupation at $360,000 to $1 million, a figure student activists have called “an exaggeration.”
Defense lawyers and supporters have also criticized the DA’s use of a criminal grand jury — a process they say is unnecessarily secretive — to indict the activists. The indictment, which supersedes charges filed in April, sends the case directly to trial and bypasses a preliminary hearing where both sides would normally present evidence and testimony to a judge.
In a statement, student group Stanford Against Apartheid in Palestine said the case “is about more than these individuals, but intended to chill the movement and free speech as a whole,” adding that the charges “should never have been a felony case.”
The Stanford prosecution comes as universities nationwide face heightened scrutiny over their responses to pro-Palestinian activism. Last year, one Stanford subcommittee documented evidence of antisemitism and anti-Israel bias on campus, while another reported widespread Islamophobia and discrimination against Muslim, Arab and Palestinian students.
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