A Washington County Circuit Court judge on Thursday sentenced an animal rights protester to seven days in jail for his role in a confrontation last summer with the neighbor of a construction company executive who'd been targeted by the protesters.

The judge, Theodore Sims, found Timothy Michael Hitchens, 36, of Portland, guilty last week of second degree willful trespassing and second degree disorderly conduct, both misdemeanors. He was given jail time for the trespassing citation and two years of probation for disorderly conduct. A charge of third degree criminal mischief was dismissed at the beginning of the one-and-a-half-day trial.

However, the terms of the sentence will not be imposed as Hitchens and his attorney, Lauren Regan of the Civil Liberties Defense Center of Eugene, take the conviction to the Oregon Court of Appeals, Sims ruled. The appeal is expected to challenge whether Hitchens was protected under the Oregon and U.S. Constitutions.

Hitchens was accused of participating in a protest June 14 at the Torrey Pines Court home of David Schmidt, an executive with Skanska Corp., which is building an animal research facility at the University of Washington. The animal rights group No New Animal Lab staged several protests last year at Schmidt's home as well as that of another Skanska executive, Tim Baugus of Sherwood.

During the June 14 protest, court documents say, a Schmidt neighbor, Patricia Wilson, came out of her home and brought a garden hose to the road and sidewalk near her home to wash away chalk messages. Those messages have said things like "David profits from murder," "There's blood on your hands," "Puppy killer," and "David Schmidt kills animals," court documents say.

Wilson's spraying the messages "angered the protesters who began coming toward her with their signs," court documents say. "Mrs. Wilson became scared that the group might hurt her so she pointed the hose toward them spraying them with water. This altercation continued for several minutes.

"At one point, the protesters began using their signs to try to block Mrs. Wilson from spraying the hose, and one protester actually hit Mrs. Wilson with her sign, causing injuries to Mrs. Wilson's arm."

Hitchens was "acting in a kind of a leadership role," amid the 20 to 40 protesters, the documents say.

During the altercation, her husband, Mark Wilson, came outside and saw Hitchens approaching his driveway. Mark Wilson told Hitchens "he was not allowed on the property and needed to leave," the court papers say.

Hitchens, however, "refused to leave and instead went up to where the garden hose was attached to their house and turned off the water spigot. (Hitchens) then approached Mrs. Wilson and engaged in a physical altercation with her, ripping the hose from her hands.

"(Hitchens) turned the hose over to the remaining protesters, who then proceeded to destroy the Wilsons' hose by breaking it into pieces. Eventually police arrived and people started to scatter."

Before sentencing, Washington County Deputy District Attorney Marie Atwood read Mark Wilson's victim statement in which he compared protesters' behavior to the action of terrorists "who want to intimidate."

Regan replied that, "It's difficult to hear a citizen of the United States and a citizen of a wealthy suburb in Washington County describe -- even looking at it in the worst case scenario - as what they experienced as terror, or terrorism, compared to what is going on around the world or around the country."

-- Allan Brettman