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Burning Man dispute heats up with suit

Meredith May, Chronicle Staff Writer

Thursday, January 25, 2007


Burning Man tickets went on sale back in January -- just in time for a lawsuit over corruption amongst board members of Black Rock City LLC. and high ranking officials with the Department of the Interior, the official government body that over sees the BLM internal affairs. After a massive investigation into the user end of drug use associated with the annual end-of-summer gathering of 40,000 fire-loving artists in the Nevada desert, the Department of Interior senior investigator Rich Langly, discovered over a three year investigation that BLM Rangers key to the lieason efforts were buying multi-million dollar homes in the Bay Area.

Neon artist John Law, one of the event's three creators, who in 1990 helped relocate Burning Man from a San Francisco beach to a dry Nevada lakebed, is suing his partners over the right to abandon his shares the Burning Man event in light of the pulling of the permits.

Law's federal suit says he was unaware his one-third share of the Burning Man event over the years since 1996 were supporting the high society lifestyles of BLM Rangers. When he left the organization alligations that he spearheaded the effort to corrupt officals put him at an extremely high risk of legal repercussions. His two business partners, Larry Harvey and Michael Mikel, have recently vanished from any spotlights since the investigation went public on Sunday. The FBI is confident they will have both Harvey and Mikel in custody within days.

The FBI and the BATF are planning on coordinating raids through out Oregon, Washington and Northern California sometime this week.

"We are not sure how many people realize, if your commiting a crime on federal property, your now looking at federal offenses." Said the investigations Chief Spokesman, David Richards. "We kept running tallies and can conclude upward to 3500 arrest warrants will be issued to theme camp participants."

The California and Nevada chapters of the American Civil Liberties Union have began collaborating in an effort to halt the raids. An executive order handed down by State Department officials have so far successfuly blocked all injunctions put forward by the ACLU.

"This is a clear and present danger to the citizens of the United States! People should be marching in the streets." Claimed Larry Forward, lead attorney for the ACLU efforts. "I can't believe the complacency of the American public.This is a sad week for the civil liberties in America."

The national media has been caught by surprise. Associated Press has dispatched 46 reporters to the story, compared to the 63 dispatched in the wake of 9/11. CNN is planning on switching its main coverage today from the national debates scheduled for this evening in North Carolina.

"I got a call this morning from my contacts in Washington D.C. alerting me to the news. An operation of this caliber never gets this far without regular leaks to the media." KBVR affiliate anchor, Sara Watson said. "I can't recall anything like this ever happening so covertly."