Biography
Erik Oseland was a member of the RNC Welcoming Committee, an anarchist/anti-authoritarian collective that organized in advance of the September 2008 Republican National Convention in St. Paul, Minnesota. He was one of eight RNCWC members arrested in raids on August 29-30, 2008 and charged with felonies including first-degree damage to property, second-degree conspiracy to riot, and conspiracy to riot in furtherance of terrorism — the most serious charges, the terrorism enhancement, were later dropped. After the prosecution dropped the terrorism count he pleaded guilty on August 27, 2010 to gross-misdemeanor conspiracy to commit damage to property, and was sentenced to 91 days in the Ramsey County Workhouse. He was the only RNC 8 defendant to serve actual incarceration time. The case is widely cited as one of the most aggressive uses of state-terrorism statutes against U.S. protesters in the post-9/11 era.
