From Ithaca Catholic Worker
On Monday, 9/14, after a long day on trial in the Municipal Court in Elizabeth, NJ, three of the Port Elizabeth 4 defendants, Teresa Grady, Danny Creamer, and Mark Scibilia-Carver, were found guilty by Judge Roman Montes of all three charges for blocking the roadway to the Port of Elizabeth last October.
The four were among an autonomous group of 100 standing in the road, stopping ZIM and Maersk trucks from delivering weapons to the Maersk Sentosa ship, delivering up to 1,000 tons weekly, to the Port of Haifa to be used in Israel’s genocide. The four repeatedly went into the first lane, already blocked by a police vehicle, and were arrested for not following orders from police to clear the roadway.
During a pre-trial press conference at court, Danny Creamer stated that, “The only purpose of a weapon is to kill people and we went to get in the way of those weapons from being sent to Israel’s genocide in Gaza.” Teresa Grady said, “We went to the get in the way of the weapons for the sake of the children.”
The judge dismissed two of the more serious charges and sentenced them to pay a $500 fine and $33 in court costs, or to serve 120 hours of community service in place of the fines. The community service option was requested by defendant Danny Creamer.
The fourth defendant, Ellen Grady, appeared virtually to enter a guilty plea to a lesser charge in order to attend the imminent birth of her grandchild. She was ordered to pay the $33 court fees.
The three represented themselves pro se and attempted to present what they wanted to argue in their defense, in acceptable legal terms, following the complicated rules of evidence. Their necessity claim was disallowed after an extended argument because they could not demonstrate satisfactory legal proof of what was being transported to the ships and how it constituted an immediate direct threat to life. International law arguments were also not accepted. Two expert witnesses, Josh Paul, a former State Dept. official under Biden who resigned over Gaza, and Timmon Wallis, an authority on international law and nonviolent defense, were not allowed to testify on Zoom because the judge decided that what they might say was not relevant to the issues of the trial. And the attempt to introduce photos of the children killed and maimed in Gaza, taken by physicians who treated them, was also ruled out as inadmissible. The defendants had asked Drs. Feroze Sidhwa and Mark Perlmutter to testify. Dr. Perlmutter, who took the photos during their two times of service in Gaza, both in the new film American Doctor, and Dr. Sidhwa were both ready in an earlier part of the day to testify by Zoom from North Carolina and Ethiopia. Their window of availability closed when the court took other cases in the morning before taking the case of the four.
The judge was fairly patient with the pro se defendants, explaining proper court procedures, but ultimately did not allow much more than minimal personal testimony as to what they did on Oct. 3rd, 2025, and their motivation. The actual trial did not begin until after 11 am because of other morning court cases and an unexpected wedding ceremony. The judge did not allow a lunch recess and pushed through until concluding at 4:30 pm. He said he was supportive of the defendants’ right to protest and was sympathetic to their concerns about Gaza but could not condone disrupting traffic, possibly endangering the public, and disobeying police orders.