Animal rights group claims credit for store blaze

CHICAGO -- A fire erupted Friday in a food store that illegally sold leopard and tiger meat to gourmets with exotic tastes, and an underground animal rights group claimed credit for starting the blaze.

"The Animal Liberation Front has claimed credit for starting this fire," FBI spokesman Ross Rice said. He said the fire was being considered an act of domestic terrorism on the part of the animal-rights group.

Agents from both the FBI and the Bureau of Alcohol, Tobacco and Firearms were investigating the fire, which was confined to a back meat-cutting room at Richard Czimer Jr.'s food store in south suburban Lockport.

The store specializes in providing customers with exotic fare.

The fire came only hours after a suburban corrections officer, William Kapp, was convicted by a federal court jury of illegally slaughtering tigers and leopards and selling the meat to Czimer's for $3 a pound.

E-mails claiming credit

Because the case focused on the slaughter of exotic animals, often shot at point-blank range while helpless in their cages, a mood of emotionalism surrounded the Kapp trial, leading agents to suspect arson.

Within hours of the blaze, the Chicago Sun-Times and Chicago Tribune received identical e-mails claiming credit for the fire, Rice said.

A copy of the communique provided by the Sun-Times specifically referred to the Kapp trial.

"These helpless animals were shot (murdered) in cages at point blank," it said. "Be careful, because we know who you are and where you live."

Kapp was among 16 individuals who were charged with illegally transporting, selling and killing tigers and leopards that are protected under the federal Endangered Species Act. The 15 others pleaded guilty.

The ring, operating in Michigan, Illinois and Missouri, sold tigers and leopards for mounted trophies, for rugs and as food.

Czimer, the operator of the store, and the corporation that operates the store were among those pleading guilty. Czimer agreed to pay $116,000 in restitution and is scheduled to be sentenced June 27.

Kapp is scheduled to be sentenced July 18.

Motorist saw smoke

ATF spokesman Tom Ahearn said a passing motorist saw smoke coming from the store around 4:30 a.m. Because of high suspicions that arson could be involved, ATF arson investigators and the state fire marshal's office were called immediately.

A dog trained to sniff out gasoline and other substances used to ignite fires combed through the ruins of the meat-cutting room.

Ahearn said fire officials estimated damage at $200,000.

Czimer attorney Alan Bruggeman said that his client had been the target of a number of "crank messages" from self-described animal lovers.

"My client has concerns about his safety," Bruggeman said.

FBI spokesman Rice said the Animal Liberation Front is responsible for 600 acts of vandalism nationwide since 1996 and officials believe there is a cell in Chicago.

"The Justice Department considers them domestic terrorists," Rice said.

A Web site maintained by the group says that it is devoted to "rescuing animals and causing financial loss to animal exploiters, usually through the damage and destruction of property."

The Kapp trial was emotionally wrenching at times. Over defense objections, U.S. District Judge Blanche M. Manning allowed prosecutors to have the stuffed and mounted remains of some of the animals in court.

Defense attorney Scott T. Kamin had maintained that the animals killed were not pure-blooded tigers and leopards but hybrid cats and thus not protected by the Endangered Species Act. Prosecutors said that was wrong.

Kamin said the sight of the magnificent-looking tigers standing in the courtroom, one with a bullet hole through his head, aroused the passions of the jurors against Kapp, who now faces perhaps 2 1/2 years in prison.