Over Ten Years to Talk About: Eric McDavid’s Northeast Speaking Tour

Submitted to It’s Going Down

Eric McDavid, a former Anarchist prisoner will be talking about ten plus years of experiences including federal prison time, the post release period and moving forward as well. The importance of supporting political prisoners will be brought up along with so much more. If you are in the area of any one of the locations listed at the bottom, please come, check it out and tell a friend!

Starting back in early 2006, from the first one of his co-defendants who took a cooperation deal and agreed to testify against Eric at trial to the second of his two co-defendants taking that same deal about 6 months later Eric began a long road as an anarchist prisoner. Being charged with” conspiracy to damage and destroy property by fire and explosive” and utilizing an entrapment defense it certainly doesn’t make things any easier if your co-defendants agree to testify against you.

Well, after twenty-eight months in “total separation,” a form of isolation at the Sacramento County Jail, he was convicted once the trial was over.  Subsequently Eric was sentenced to an outrageous 19 years and 7 months due to a Terrorism enhancement, and shortly after taken into the custody of the Federal Bureau of prisons. He was then sent to a medium security federal prison called FCI Victorville, where he ended up spending the majority of the sentence and then moved to a low security prison in San Pedro, CA.  It wasn’t until Sacramento Prisoner Support found out through multiple FOIA requests there was sufficient documentation of withholding evidence at trial that after a habeas petition was filed the new prosecutor which was assigned to Eric’s case made an offer to Eric’s attorneys that could bring him home.  If Eric would agree to a single felony charge of general conspiracy that carried a max of 5 years, and the district judge would sign off on it, he would be released with time served and have a max of 2 years probation.

After a very tumultuous transport from the low security prison, Eric returned to the Sacramento County Jail for the court appearance.  Well, after an anxiety filled court appearance on the afternoon of January 8th, 2015 and quite a few hours later, Eric McDavid walked out of the doors of the federal building at 5th and I streets in street clothes with a big smile on his face and ready to get into the back seat of his parent’s car in search of a little peace.

Now it’s been over a year and a half from that very day and Eric has a lot to share. Those nine years he endured from arrest, to the day the appeal went before the judge and he walked out and started the 2 years of supervised release. A probation that was terminated back at the ¾’s mark on May 8th of this year. Then there’s all that he has experienced since being released from federal prison and now being done with the probation as well. He has worked towards being a yoga instructor and last October was one of the many former political prisoners who helped encourage a committee to be formed within the National Lawyers Guild to focus on the issues Political Prisoners do face. There’s so much more, but we’ll let him tell you all about it.

Please check it out if you can and definitely spread the word about Eric McDavid’s New York, Massachusetts and Pennsylvania speaking tour.

To learn more about Eric’s case, please visit Support Eric.

The Tour

7pm, Thursday, 08-11-2016
Burning Books
420 Connecticut Street, Buffalo, NY
https://www.facebook.com/events/1813273398900874/

6pm, Friday, 08-12-2016
Stone Soup
4 King Street, Worcester, MA
facebook.com/events/1025247660928635/

7pm, Saturday, 08-13-2016
The Base
1302 Myrtle Avenue, Brooklyn, NY
https://thebasebk.org/calendar/

7pm, Monday, 08-15-2016
Wooden Shoe Books
704 South Street, Philadelphia, PA
https://www.facebook.com/events/655433154607268/

7pm, Tuesday, 08-16-2016
Big Idea Books
4812 Liberty Avenue, Pittsburgh, PA
http://thebigideapgh.org/