SAN FRANCISCO (Reuters)
- Three activists convicted
of battery for creaming San Francisco Mayor
Willie Brown with cherry,
pumpkin and tofu pies last year were
sentenced Wednesday to six months in
county jail.
San Francisco Superior Court Judge Ernest Goldsmith said he
levied the maximum possible sentence for a
misdemeanor battery charge after the pie-tossers declined
probation.
The three members of the Biotic Baking Brigade, which seeks to
make political points by hurling pastries
at the prominent, were found guilty of battery last month for
their attack on Brown during a news
conference on Nov. 7, 1998.
In sentencing the defendants -- dubbed the "Cherry Pie Three"
by local media -- Goldsmith said they
must "learn to use other methods to get their message across to
the government."
The hot-tempered mayor, who brought down one assailant himself,
suffered a sprained ankle and a bump
on the knee in the melee that erupted after the pies were
tossed, while one of his assailants, 28-year-old
Rahula Janowski, had her clavicle broken when she was tackled by
an onlooker.
The
Biotic Baking Brigade fights in the name of the environment
and the homeless. Past targets of their
pastry-throwing have included the executive director of the
Sierra Club, a Nobel prize-winning economist
and the director general of the World Trade Organization.
