Texas ELF member gets 5 years prison for trying to firebomb Pasadena condos

ELF member gets 5 years for attempted firebombing

LOS ANGELES — A Texas man who tried to firebomb a condominium development under construction in Pasadena has been sentenced to five years in federal prison.

Prosecutors say 44-year-old Stephen Murphy apologized to the court and to his fiancee Monday before he was sentenced in federal court in Los Angeles.

He pleaded guilty in January to conspiring with another member of the environmental extremist movement Earth Liberation Front to burn down the multimillion-dollar condos with a juice bottle containing gasoline in 2006. The timer attached to the bomb failed.

Prosecutors say Murphy wanted to intimidate and inflict economic harm on individuals and companies they believed were causing harm to the environment.