William "Billy" Jensen Cottrell (born 1980) is a former Ph.D. candidate at the California Institute of Technology who was convicted in April 2005 of conspiracy to arson of 8 sport utility vehicles and a Hummer dealership in the name of the Earth Liberation Front (ELF). He was sentenced to eight years in jail on terrorism charges and ordered to pay $3.5 million in restitution. His lawyers however have launched an appeal on it. He will be released ...
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William "Billy" Jensen Cottrell (born 1980) is a former Ph.D. candidate at the California Institute of Technology who was convicted in April 2005 of conspiracy to arson of 8 sport utility vehicles and a Hummer dealership in the name of the Earth Liberation Front (ELF). He was sentenced to eight years in jail on terrorism charges and ordered to pay $3.5 million in restitution. His lawyers however have launched an appeal on it. He will be released in 2013.
Cottrell grew up in Concord, North Carolina and Gainesville, Florida, with two younger siblings, a brother and a sister. His parents, who eventually divorced, are William Cottrell, an anesthesiologist, and Heidi Schwiebert. According to his mother, who referred to her son as being socially retarded, and according to other sources, Cottrell had trouble fitting in with his peers during his childhood and adolescence. From a young age, he was fascinated with science, especially math and physics. As a sixth-grader, he submitted a report on...
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