Katyanne Marie Kibby, 25, was indicted by a federal grand jury in Austin, Texas, in June on suspicion of retaliating against Brandon Darby, the community activist-turned-informant who helped federal prosecutors win convictions against two Texas men who planned to bomb the Republican National Convention in St. Paul last year.
The alleged e-mail threat was made Jan. 10. That was two days after one of the men, Bradley Neal Crowder, reached a plea bargain with federal prosecutors in Minneapolis for his role in the plot to build Molotov cocktails and attack the GOP convention in September 2008.
Crowder, 24, and David Guy McKay, 23, were part of an Austin-based group of activists who came to the Twin Cities to take part in street demonstrations. Unbeknownst to them at the time, the FBI had infiltrated the group with Darby, nationally known for his community activism.
Crowder and McKay built eight Molotov cocktails but didn't use them, a fact law enforcement officials credited to Darby. However, members of the Austin protest community heaped scorn on Darby, claiming he had betrayed longtime friends and colleagues.
Kibby, who now lives in Houston, is free on a $10,000 unsecured bond. She could not be reached for comment.
She has her own colorful history in the Twin Cities: In 2006, she was one of seven people arrested in Minneapolis as part of a "Zombie Dance Party," people who dressed as zombies and alternately danced and lurched through downtown in a satire of mindless consumerism.
No charges were filed, but Kibby and the others sued the city and Hennepin County over their arrests. A federal judge threw out the suit, but the group has appealed to the 8th U.S. Circuit Court of Appeals.
In the retaliation case, federal prosecutors in Texas and Kibby's public defender have until next week to reach a plea agreement. If they don't, her trial is to begin Aug. 31 in U.S. District Court in Austin.
Kibby's attorney, Jose Gonzalez-Falla, did not return a call Monday for comment; nor did Assistant U.S. Attorney Gregg Sofer.
Darby, who lives near Austin, also did not return a call for comment.
The single-count indictment says Kibby "did knowingly engage in conduct threatening bodily injury" to Darby. It says she sent an e-mail that threatened his life ""for giving information to a law enforcement officer," namely the FBI.
The indictment doesn't say what was in the e-mail.
No-Contact Order
Darby, originally from Houston, had earned a national reputation as an activist in New Orleans after Hurricane Katrina struck in August 2005. He was a co-founder of the Common Ground Collective, a group of volunteers that delivered food, water, supplies and medical care to people in the flood-ravaged city.But he said he grew disenchanted with some of the beliefs and tactics more-radical activists used. That disenchantment led him to contacts with the FBI, and in November 2007, agents asked him to work as an undercover informant.
Federal agents asked him to infiltrate a loose-knit group of activists in Austin that included McKay, who did part-time graphic design work at an ad agency, and Crowder, who worked in a sandwich shop. In the months leading up to the GOP convention in St. Paul, the FBI was concerned that some groups planning to converge on St. Paul planned something other than peaceful demonstrations.
Darby accompanied the group to St. Paul. McKay and Crowder later built the Molotov cocktails and alternately planned to bomb either a truck with a large television screen or a parking lot law enforcement officers used, according to later testimony.
McKay and Crowder were charged in September 2008. A little over a month later, Darby's work as an informant was first disclosed by the Pioneer Press.
Crowder pleaded guilty in a plea bargain with prosecutors, but McKay took his case to trial. Darby was the key witness against him.
When McKay testified in his own defense, he claimed Darby entrapped him. He told jurors that had it not been for Darby's urgings, he never would have built the Molotov cocktails.
The jury couldn't reach a verdict and a judge declared a mistrial. Before his second trial was to begin, federal prosecutors said Crowder would be called as a witness against McKay. McKay accepted a plea bargain, averting a retrial.
Crowder was sentenced to two years in prison and is scheduled for release next May. McKay was sentenced to four years in prison, and is due to get out in April 2012.
The retaliation charge was handed up by a federal grand jury in Austin, the Texas capital. The public court file does not indicate how Kibby might have known Darby, but among the conditions of her pretrial release was that she had to avoid any contact with the man or anyone else who may be a potential victim or witness in the case.
She was released to the custody of her father, identified in court papers as Joe S. Kibby, and a federal magistrate told her she had to undergo any "mental health treatment/counseling" that the U.S. Pretrial Services office deems necessary.
If found guilty, Kibby could face 20 years in prison and a $250,000 fine.
'Zombie In Spirit'
Kibby and her younger brother, Kyle Kibby, were among a group of people arrested July 22, 2006, in downtown Minneapolis. They had applied pasty white makeup and fake blood to their faces, dressed in black, rigged backpacks with boomboxes and gone downtown during the Aquatennial parade. (In a later deposition, Kibby said she didn't wear the makeup but was a "zombie in spirit.")Members of the group said they intended the display as performance art and social commentary on "what they believed to be the mindless nature of consumer culture," U.S. District Judge Joan Ericksen later wrote in a court ruling. They used their sound system to broadcast "silly mock advertisements like 'brain check on aisle five,' 'get your brains here,' and 'brains,' " Ericksen wrote.
When an assistant city attorney took Kibby's deposition, he asked her how zombies walked.
"If I remember correctly in the police report and in the media, they use the term 'lurching,' " she replied. "And I think that's traditionally what you would refer to as a zombie walk is 'lurch.' Have I lurched before in my life? Yes. In this instance, perhaps."
Police originally told them to turn down their music, but the confrontation escalated into arrests. The zombies were taken into custody for alleged disorderly conduct and for allegedly violating a law passed after the 9/11 terrorist attacks that made it a crime to alarm the public with simulated weapons of mass destruction.
They were never charged, but they sued the city and Hennepin County for false imprisonment, assault, battery and defamation. The city and county moved to have the case dismissed.
In a ruling last September, Ericksen wrote that while she doubted the arrests "were strictly necessary," the plaintiffs didn't have a case on some charges and the defendants had immunity on the others. She granted a summary judgment in the city and county's favor.
Kibby and the others filed a notice of appeal. The case was argued before a panel of the 8th Circuit Court of Appeals on June 9, seven days after Kibby was indicted in Texas. A ruling has not yet been handed down.
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