If you would like
to do a written interview with Lauren, please mail your interview questions
to her at:
Lauren Gazzola
#93497-011
FCI Danbury
Federal Correctional Institution
Route #37
Danbury, CT 06811
If you would like to arrange
for an in-prison interview, please contact the SHAC 7 support committee
at info@SHAC7.com.
FREQUENTLY ASKED
QUESTIONS
Q: What was Lauren
convicted of?
A: Lauren was one
of three individual defendants, along with organizational defendant
SHAC USA, who was charged in all counts of the indictment. As such,
she was convicted of violating the Animal Enterprise Protection Act,
Conspiracy to Stalk, three substantive counts of Interstate Stalking,
and Conspiracy to Violate the Communications Act of 1934.
Q: What other
issues beside animal rights has Lauren involved herself in?
A: Lauren became
active in political and social justice struggles in high school through
her school's chapter of Amnesty International, of which she was the
vice president her senior year. Also while in high school, Lauren volunteered
with Youth Reacting to AIDS, a group dedicated to raising awareness
of the disease and providing resources for those living with the disease.
In college she worked as a tutor to inner city youth through the America
Reads/America Counts program, and volunteered doing literacy work with low income adults at the Grand Street Settlement on New York City's Lower East Side. Most
recently she has worked at StirFry Seminars, a small consulting company
in Berkeley, CA which conducts seminars in racism, sexism & homophobia,
and volunteered at the California Anti-SLAPP Project, which defends
those sued in Strategic Lawsuits Against Public Participation (SLAPPs
- actions filed on the basis of the defendant's participation in public
affairs and public expression).
Q: Why does Lauren
have her own support site, separate from the SHAC 7 website (www.SHAC7.com)?
A: To ensure that
each defendant was adequately supported while s/he was in prison, each
of the SHAC 7 defendants chose an individual person to act as their
primary support person on the outside. This individual ensures that
the defendants have adequate funds in their commissary account (though
s/he does not provide the funds - please donate by clicking
here), prints and mails the defendant emails, and is the primary
person the prisoner can contact to help her with anything she may need
during her incarceration. In Lauren's case, her primary support individual
chose to operate a specific website to support her. This became SupportLauren.com.
Q: What does
Lauren like to do when she's not sitting in prison?
A: Lauren is an
avid dancer and aspiring law school candidate. She has taken dance classes
since she was 3 years old and it is one of her most fervent passions.
Also, prior to her arrest in the SHAC 7 case, Lauren was working on
applying to law school with the ultimate goal of practicing First Amendment
law to represent individuals like herself, who have been sued or imprisoned
for expressing their beliefs. Lauren has been arrested several times
for her participation in protests, indicted twice, sued several times
(once in a Federal RICO suit for $12 million) and has represented herself
extensively in civil litigation. "It's time I gave something back,"
she says amusingly regarding her intention of practicing law. Lauren's
aptitude for the law has been hailed by nearly every attorney she has
worked with, and she has enormous potential to become an outstanding
attorney after clearing the hurdle of this conviction.
Q: Besides sending letters, books,
and commissary funds how else may
I support Lauren?
A: Well, if you have a huge chunk of cash you're looking to unload somewhere, Lauren's student loans are sitting around waiting for her to pay them. I'm sure Citibank would happily take it off your hands. If you'd like to help, email Lauren's support committee at info@supportlauren.com
If you have a question
you'd like answered, please email info@SupportLauren.com,
or better yet, write to Lauren directly!
