A Bay Area activist was found guilty on Wednesday of breaking into a meat processing plant and stealing four chickens she said had been mistreated, in a trial that was being closely watched by animal rights groups and the agricultural industry.
A jury in Sonoma County, north of San Francisco, convicted Zoe Rosenberg, 23, of felony conspiracy, trespassing and other charges for a nighttime raid she conducted at Petaluma Poultry in 2023. Ms. Rosenberg, a student at the University of California, Berkeley, faces up to four and a half years in jail.
But the verdict’s implications are likely to ripple far beyond Sonoma County, a rich agricultural region known not just for its cattle and poultry but also its wine industry.
Ms. Rosenberg is a prominent member of Direct Action Everywhere, an animal liberation group based in Berkeley, Calif., that is known for its extreme tactics. The group, which goes by DxE, argues that animals should have the same rights as humans. Some members break into farms and film what they say are abused hens, cows and other livestock.
In recent years, juries have acquitted some DxE activists, even after they admitted to taking animals that did not belong to them.
In 2023, jurors in California’s Central Valley acquitted DxE activists of charges that they had taken two chickens from a Foster Farms slaughterhouse. Prosecutors called it stealing, but the activists, including Alexandra Paul, a former star on the television show “Baywatch,” said they were rescuing neglected animals, the way a person might break a window to rescue a dog trapped in a hot car.
Some looked to the trial of Ms. Rosenberg for a sign of where DxE’s movement might go next. Animal rights advocates had hoped an acquittal would help fuel their activism. Farmers, particularly in Sonoma County, where DxE has focused many of its recent efforts, worried that an acquittal would only further embolden activists they feel have terrorized them for years.
Carla Rodriguez, the Sonoma County district attorney, said the conviction underscored that DxE and other activist groups were not above the law.
“They have attempted to use the criminal justice system itself as a platform to gain attention and further their movement,” Ms. Rodriguez said in a statement. “The court system exists to uphold justice — not to serve as a stage for self-promotion or lawless behavior. We will continue to hold individuals accountable when they cross that line.”
Ms. Rosenberg is scheduled to be sentenced on Dec. 3.
David McCuan, a political science professor at Sonoma State University, said the guilty verdict would likely push DxE to re-evaluate its strategy to win supporters.
He said it was somewhat surprising that the earlier jury in the Central Valley, a more conservative part of the state, was sympathetic to the activists, while the one in liberal Sonoma County decided to convict.
These animal activists “will have to reconsider their responses, their actions, and activism for the future,” said Mr. McCuan. “This is an inflection moment.”
DxE, however, did not seem deterred. Ms. Rosenberg’s attorneys plan to appeal her conviction, they said.
And hours after the conviction, Ms. Rosenberg said she did not regret her actions.
She said that during the raid at Petaluma Poultry, a division of the agribusiness giant Perdue Farms, she found chickens covered in scratches and bruises, including some with high fevers and serious infections. There was also evidence, she said, that birds were being scalded alive, instead of killed before boiling, because the slaughter lines were moving too quickly.
The four chickens she took with her — whom she named Poppy, Ivy, Aster and Azalea — are alive at a sanctuary for rescued farm animals, she said.
“I will not apologize for taking sick, neglected animals to get medical care,” Ms. Rosenberg said in a statement. “When we see cruelty and violence, we can choose to ignore it or to intervene and try to make the world a better place.”
She added: “For that, I will never be sorry.”
Soumya Karlamangla is a Times reporter who covers California. She is based in the Bay Area.
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