Hindi faces new charges in Hegins Protest

Thursday, Sept. 20, 1990

THE MORNING CALL (Allentown, PA)

By SUSAN TODD of the Morning Call

An animal rights activist from Illinois who participated in a raucous protest at the Labor Day pigeon shoot in Hegins township was arrested on new, upgraded charges when he arrived for a preliminary hearing before District Justice Earl Matz in Schuylkill County yesterday.

Steve Hindi was led from a corridor by state troopers about 10 a.m. and arraigned on misdemeanor charges of disorderly conduct and criminal mischief in Matz’s Tremont office.

Hindi, 36, had travelled from Illinois to fight summary charges that were filed against him Sept. 3. He was one of six animal rights activists ordered to appear before Matz yesterday.

Most of the activists faced charges of disorderly conduct for fighting or creating disturbances during a massive protest at the pigeon shoot, a 56-year-old fund-raising event in Hegins Township that animal rights advocates have vehemently opposed for the past five years.

Hindi was charged with disorderly conduct and criminal mischief for breaking the windshield of a vehicle after the driver struck him lightly and then drove for several hundred feet with Hindi sprawled on the hood.

State police upgraded those charges yesterday, saying $1,100 worth of damage was done to the vehicle, exceeding the $500 limit that characterizes a summary offense.

Matz set bail at $7,500, and Hindi was released on his own recognizance after posting 10 percent.

The move by state police seemed to set the stage for a seven hour proceeding for five other activists that was marked by arguments by attorneys that the police wrote “defective” citations and repeated private conferences between Matz and Corp. Arthur Zeplin, who prosecuted the activists.

Three activists, Gregory Hindi of Wichita, Kan.; Bernard Unti of Jenkintown, Montgomery County; and Theresa Barr of Efford, Monroe County, were find guilty of disorderly persons offenses. Each was fined $300 plus $54 in court costs.

Two other activists, Carola Seiler of Hazelton and Daniel Morekin of Dauphin, Dauphin County, requested their hearings be postponed when Zeplin amended their citations with additional charges. Both are scheduled to appear before Matz on Sept. 26.

Robert Bodzin, an attorney from Philadelphia, argued that Unti, who was charged wiht using loud, boisterous language and creating a hazardous condition, could not have created an unreasonable amount of noise because he was standing in the midst of hundreds of protesters when police arrested him.

Police maintained that Unti spoke into a megaphone after Hegins Township Police Chief Melvin Stutzman informed him twice that megaphones were not permitted in an area authorities had set aside for the protestors at the Hegins Community Park.

“I think the arrest of Mr. Unti was made in the heat of the moment,” Bozdin told Matz. “when he picked up the bullhorn to speak, Chief Stutzman thought that somehow he was keeping the crowd under control by taking the bullhorn away.”

Bozdin said that for Unti to be arrested for disorderly conduct for speaking into a megaphone in a crowd of hundreds “is offensive to the First Amendment of the Constitution.”