Prosecutors delivered on their promise to escalate charges against Prairieland defendants who refused the government's plea deal, filing a superseding indictment against nine people with significantly expanded charges. The indictment charged Cameron Arnold (also known as Autumn Hill), Zachary Evetts, Benjamin Song, Savanna Batten, Bradford Morris (also known as Meagan Morris), Maricela Rueda, Elizabeth Soto, Ines Soto, and Daniel Rolando Sanchez-Estrada.
The most serious new charges included attempted murder of employees of the United States. Hill, Evetts, Song, Batten, Morris, Rueda, Elizabeth Soto, and Ines Soto were charged with rioting, providing material support to terrorists, conspiracy to use and carry an explosive, and use and carry of an explosive -- the "explosive" being consumer fireworks. The theory of attempted murder liability extended to all participants under an aiding-and-abetting theory: that by attending the protest in black clothing and setting off fireworks, they aided Song's shooting of the officer.
Sanchez-Estrada, who was not present at the July 4 demonstration, was charged with conspiracy to conceal documents and corruptly concealing a document for moving boxes of anarchist pamphlets after his wife Maricela Rueda's arrest.
The prosecutorial strategy was transparent: defendants who accepted the single-count material support plea deal would face up to 15 years; those who exercised their right to trial would face charges carrying 10 to 60 years (or life, in Song's case). This coercive differential -- known colloquially as the "trial penalty" -- pressured defendants to plead guilty to terrorism charges rather than risk decades of additional prison time. Elizabeth and Ines Soto, a married couple who operated a printing press and ran the Emma Goldman Book Club (a local anarchist reading group), chose to go to trial rather than accept the terrorism plea.