A videographer who spent 7 1/2 months in prison for refusing to turn over footage of a San Francisco street demonstration to a federal grand jury was released from custody Tuesday after striking a deal with prosecutors to publish his outtakes on the Web.
Under the agreement, Josh Wolf, 24, will not have to testify or identify people shown in the video. The U.S. attorney is investigating the wounding of a police officer, who was struck in the head with a pipe during the demonstration, as well as an alleged attempt to set fire to a police car. The video footage Wolf released Tuesday morning on his website, www.joshwolf.net, did not show either incident.
On Tuesday afternoon, Wolf was released after spending 226 days at the federal prison in Dublin, about 30 miles east of San Francisco. He served a longer term than any journalist in U.S. history has served for refusing to reveal unpublished material or sources.
"I feel really good, a bit overwhelmed," he said in an interview via cellphone, as he drove to a news conference in San Francisco. "The pace of life is so slow in prison, I feel like a kid from the country coming to the city, even though I live here."
All along Wolf had insisted that the video did not contain anything that would be relevant to the investigation, but he also said he had a constitutional right as a journalist not to cooperate with authorities and become "an arm of law enforcement." Several media advocacy groups, including the Committee to Protect Journalists, supported his stance and called for his release. The U.S. attorney argued that Wolf was not a journalist and did not have that right.
In November, with his appeals exhausted, Wolf agreed to release the video as long as he did not have to testify. But the U.S. attorney wanted his testimony, he said.
On Feb. 12, Wolf was interviewed by the syndicated left-of-center radio program Democracy Now and said he received hundreds of letters of support. The next day, U.S. District Judge William Alsup referred the case to a magistrate for mediation. On Monday, Wolf and the government came to the current agreement.
Wolf released the video and answered two questions under penalty of perjury. He was asked whether he saw anyone throw anything at a police car and whether he saw the person whom San Francisco Police Officer Peter Shields was trying to take into custody when he was struck in the head. Shields suffered a skull fracture. "My answer is no," he replied to both.
