Indigo and Matt had their bail reduction hearing yesterday, after 23 days in jail. Thomas. A. Dunn, the judge who originally set their bail at $65,000 each, recused himself from the case for undisclosed reasons. Community members such as Pastor Kyle Childress of Austin Heights Baptist Church testified as character witnesses. The replacement judge, Floyd T. Getz, reduced Indigo’s bail to $30,000 and lowered Matt’s to $20,000.
Matt and Indigo were arrested on December 3 for barricading themselves inside the Keystone XL pipe. Glen, who was also arrested, was bailed out earlier this week.
These bail amounts are still high for misdemeanor charges of illegal dumping and resisting arrest (the trespassing charges were dropped because Matt and Indigo spent more than 15 days in jail), which would normally not exceed $5000 each.
All that aside, the good news is that Indigo is free, and we’re working on getting Matt out as soon as possible!
We want to express our heartfelt thanks to anyone who’s donated money or written letters of support. Thank you so much – we couldn’t have done this without you. And please, if you haven’t contributed yet, or you can spare a bit more, consider helping out. $50,000 total bail is still very high.
