Biography
Ruby Montoya, raised in Phoenix, Arizona, was a preschool teacher in Boulder, Colorado before quitting her job in 2016 to join the Mississippi Stand encampment against the Dakota Access Pipeline in southeast Iowa. With Jessica Reznicek - her friend and Des Moines Catholic Worker housemate - she set fire to oil-soaked rags and used oxyacetylene torches to disable construction equipment and burn through exposed pipeline valves at multiple Iowa sites between November 2016 and May 2017, attempting to halt completion of a pipeline that crosses Standing Rock Sioux water sources. The two publicly claimed responsibility at a July 2017 press conference at the Iowa Utilities Board. Montoya pleaded guilty in 2021 to conspiracy to damage an energy facility, was sentenced in September 2022 to 72 months in federal prison (with the federal terrorism enhancement applied) and roughly three million dollars in restitution joint with Reznicek. She was released from federal custody in October 2025.
