HURLEY, WI (WTAQ) – A Wausau area woman has been sentenced to nine months in jail for vandalism during a protest at the proposed Gogebic Taconite iron ore mine.
27-year-old Katie Kloth of Weston, formerly of Stevens Point, was convicted of felony robbery and misdemeanor criminal damage. Two other misdemeanors were dropped in a plea deal.
The protesters disrupted mining workers who were drilling exploratory holes at the mining site in Iron County in 2013.
Authorities said Kloth led a group that threw cans and water bottles at workers, damaged equipment, and got upset with an employee who was videotaping the protest. Kloth and another person seized the camera and stole the operator’s cellphone.
Circuit Judge Douglas Fox called it an “assault on people” and ordered Kloth to pay $2,400 dollars in restitution.
State Senate Republican Tom Tiffany later proposed a bill to cut off public access to lands at the mining site, to avoid a repeat of the vandalism. However, Tiffany accepted a compromise after learning that people’s families who’ve hunted on the land for generations could no longer do so.
(Story courtesy of Wheeler News Service)
