By Ruth Longoria

Peter Daniel Young, the 1995 Mercer Island High School graduate charged with releasing thousands of minks from Midwest farms and dodging federal authorities for six years, pleaded guilty Aug. 26 to two counts of animal enterprise terrorism.

Four additional extortion charges against Young were dropped in July when it was determined that the Supreme Court changed the legal definition of extortion while Young was on the run. Those charges could have each carried up to 20 years in prison.

In pleading guilty to the misdemeanor animal terrorism charges, Young struck a deal with federal and state prosecutors to serve a maximum of two years in prison, one year for each count.

In 1997, Young and a Snohomish man, Justin Samuel, were arrested for raiding mink farms in Iowa, South Dakota and Wisconsin and releasing about 7,000 animals. The two men fled after being indicted in 1998. Samuel was captured a year later in Belgium. He served two years for his crimes and implicated Young in the acts.

Young, 28, was arrested in March for shoplifting CDs from a Starbucks in San Jose, Calif. He has been in Dane County Jail since he was extradited to Madison, Wisc., for the original offenses. Federal investigators believe Young is a member of Animal Liberation Front (ALF), a radical animal rights organization that vandalizes and destroys property hoping to gain attention for their cause and wipe out what members consider to be the inhumane treatment of animals. The FBI in San Francisco is currently investigating Young’s whereabouts during his years on the run, and if West Coast animal rights activists sheltered him while he was a fugitive.