San Mateo County court sentences animal rights activist to jail

By Michael Manekin
San Mateo County Times Posted: 
02/03/2009 05:25:03 PM PST

REDWOOD CITY - A 33-year-old man has been sentenced in San Mateo County Superior Court to six months in county jail and three years probation for threatening two scientists who perform research on animals.

Justin Bhagat Thind, of Capitola, was sentenced Monday after pleading no contest in December to one felony count of threatening a public official and one misdemeanor count of making threatening phone calls. Before the plea deal, he had been facing several more felony counts, including stalking.

Thind called the researchers "day and night" between Sept. 6, 2007, and Sept. 10, 2007, according to Chief Deputy District Attorney Steve Wagstaffe. He is alleged to have told the researchers they would suffer the same way they made the animals suffer, Wagstaffe said.

The researchers alerted campus police several months later and reported they felt "insecure," prosecutors said.

Police arrested Thind on July 6, 2008, after investigators tied the threatening phone calls to his cell phone, prosecutors said.

Thind must surrender himself to the Sheriff's Office on May 2 to begin his jail sentence.