The criminal trial of a young activist involved in a Bay Area animal welfare group’s aggressive campaign targeting Sonoma County poultry farms is set to kick off this week, drawing more attention to a case that’s existed in a spotlight from its earliest days.

Zoe Rosenberg is charged with felony conspiracy and three misdemeanors related to a 2023 incursion by activists at a Petaluma Poultry processing facility, one of several sites where the Berkeley group Direct Action Everywhere has staged large demonstrations to highlight farm conditions it contends are unsafe and harmful for birds raised for their eggs and meat.

Representatives of the region’s poultry industry, rooted in Petaluma for generations, have rejected those allegations and have pressed the county’s district attorney to prosecute individuals involved in the farm incursions, which they say present a serious threat to biosecurity and employee safety.

In some of those instances over the past seven years, activists made off with birds who they said were in poor health due to farm operations. Participants, according to prosecutors, have accessed private property after cutting through chain-linked fences. On several occasions, they’ve chained themselves to front gates and equipment, refusing to leave even when confronted by law enforcement.

Rosenberg’s trial, where jury selection could begin as soon as Thursday, with opening statements to follow before Sonoma County Judge Kenneth Gnoss, represents the second time in as many years where a member of Direct Action Everywhere, or DxE, is the defendant.

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This time, the proceedings come about 10 months after Sonoma County voters overwhelmingly rejected a DXE-backed ballot measure that threatened to shut down large livestock and poultry farms. It also punctuates a recent wave of civil litigation over the group’s ongoing protests outside poultry executives’ homes and in Trader Joe’s stores.

Critics, including farming interests, have called the actions antagonistic and invasive.

“The farming and ranching community is closely following the trial. We look forward to justice being served,” said Dayna Ghirardelli, CEO of the Sonoma County Farm Bureau.

Rosenberg, 23, faces nearly five years in prison if convicted as charged in a case prosecutors emphasize is less about Petaluma Poultry’s business practices and more about activists trespassing onto private property and taking animals without permission.

The felony conspiracy count stems from alleged activity from April 23 to June 13 in 2023, when Rosenberg, a UC Berkeley student at the time, is accused of entering the Lakeville Highway processing facility at odd hours of the night and morning, searching through computers and records and attaching GPS monitors to 12 delivery vehicles.

The alleged activity came to a head the morning of June 13, when prosecutors said Rosenberg took four birds from a trailer as about 50 DXE members rallied nearby. Investigators said four of those protesters fled with the birds in a rented Nissan Pathfinder.

Rosenberg was arrested Nov. 30, 2023 outside the Sonoma County courthouse hours after DXE’s co-founder, Wayne Hsiung, was sentenced in a separate conspiracy and trespassing case involving other poultry farms. Rosenberg has been out of custody since then, but was forced to wear an ankle monitor. She and her supporters maintain she did nothing wrong.

“The chickens I rescued, who I named Poppy, Ivy, Aster, and Azalea, were covered in scratches and bruises, filled with parasites and battling infections,” Rosenberg said in a statement Monday. “I did what I think most people would’ve done if faced with such suffering: I acted to stop it, to get them help. Today, they are safe and happy at an animal sanctuary.”

Her attorney, Chris Carraway, said “Had Ms. Rosenberg taken four dead chickens from a supermarket meat case, I cannot imagine her facing such hefty charges and steep penalties, nor being surveilled for two years.”

DXE has rallied behind her, promoting her defense on a billboard along Highway 101 in Petaluma that asked whether Rosenberg should go to prison for what the group characterized as rescuing a chicken.

Defendants and their supporters argue they are saving birds from farms where they allege the conditions are inhumane. They justify their aggressive approach by citing California law that allows animals in distress to be rescued.

The lead-up to the trial has included plenty of legal wrangling between the two sides.

A judge rejected the Sonoma County District Attorney’s Office’s attempt to remove the highway billboard over concern it could influence potential jurors. But Rosenberg and her attorneys hit a snag on June 30 when Gnoss ruled a central tenet of her case would not be allowed.

The ruling barred her use of a so-called necessity defense, where a defendant needs to prove action is being taken in an emergency to prevent significant harm, there’s no legal alternative and additional harm won’t be caused. Gnoss concluded those terms did not apply to actions at a poultry farm.

“There are times when the risk of harm to a person is so great and so immediate, that the law can be broken, but to extend that to situations where the harm is to nonhuman beings would not be appropriate and would open the flood gates and allow individuals to violate the law whenever they disagreed with regulatory or governmental outcomes,” Gnoss wrote in his ruling.

DXE has gained nationwide notoriety for its high-profile and sometimes disruptive demonstrations assailing large-scale animal farming. Many of its members oppose consumption of meat altogether.

In December 2022, Rosenberg was arrested after chaining herself to the base of a hoop during an NBA playoff game between the Memphis Grizzlies and Minnesota Timberwolves.

In Sonoma County, DXE members have converged on area poultry facilities in large numbers throughout the past year. They’ve protested outside homes belonging to officials with Petaluma Poultry and its parent company, Perdue Farms. They’ve also swarmed Trader Joe’s stores across California to discourage sale of Petaluma Poultry products.

Numerous requests for injunctions have been filed, including by Trader Joe’s, to curb the gatherings. DXE remains resolute in its goals, often announcing protests in advance and sharing footage online.

Agriculture interests, buoyed in part by the overwhelming rejection last year of Measure J, which targeted large local animal farms, have picked up from where they left off in that high-stakes and costly political fight.

This week, Sonoma County Family Farmers Alliance circulated a petition asking residents to pledge support for the local animal agriculture community as it’s “under attack from extreme activists.” The mailer doesn’t reference DXE by name but includes a line that “extremists from Berkeley don’t speak for us.”

“Given the harassment and bullying at the homes and neighborhoods of poultry workers over the last several months, coupled with their ongoing negative and destructive presence, the Sonoma County Family Farmers Alliance sent the flyer to remind us of the importance of the food grown here in Sonoma County and the tireless efforts of the people who bring it to our tables,” Ghirardelli said.

You can reach Staff Writer Colin Atagi at [email protected]. On Twitter @colin_atagi.