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The California Office of the Attorney General has decided not to retry five Stanford University students for felony conspiracy to trespass and vandalism after they allegedly broke into the university president’s office during a pro-Palestine protest in June 2024.
Instead, the protesters were ordered to serve 100 hours of community service and pay $51,973 of restitution in total, as part of an agreement that was finalized Monday.
The students, German Gonzalez, Maya Burke, Taylor McCann, Amy Jing Zhai and Hunter Taylor-Black, will face no charges upon completion of their community service. The group paid their restitution in full at the Monday proceeding. Other students Cameron Michael Pennington, Kaiden Wang and Gretchen Rose Giumarin, who previously had their charges reduced to misdemeanors, will also serve the community service hours in exchange for dropping their charges.
District Attorney Jeff Rosen spearheaded the case against the students, who reportedly broke into and vandalized the school president’s office in June 2024 to protest the ongoing killings in Gaza and to urge Stanford University to divest from companies supplying military aid to Israel.
The trial ended in a hung jury in February and Rosen immediately attempted to retry the case. But his office was later forced to recuse after he listed the prosecution of Stanford Five on a donation webpage where he detailed his efforts to “fighting antisemitism.”
The Stanford lawsuit is “not a hate-crime case,” and should not be characterized as a fight against antisemitism, Santa Clara County Superior Court Judge Kelley Paul said in May.
The California Attorney General’s Office took over the case and eventually struck a deal with defense attorneys to drop the charges and reduce the restitution amount.
Defense attorney Leah Gillis said the students were overcharged and that the legal proceedings went “terribly wrong” for a long period of time. For years, the legal team had requested that the District Attorney’s Office formally review the “outrageous” restitution requests that at one point totaled around $700,000.
“The District Attorney’s Office of Santa Clara County allowed this farce to go on for as long as they did because they refused to do their job, which was to vet the restitution that was being demanded,” Gillis said. “Had this come in at $51,000, this never would’ve been filed as a felony.”
She thanked the Attorney General for a “reasonable” and “respectful” conclusion to the case.
When the announcement was made at the San Jose Department of Justice, some supporters, who filled the courtroom, wiped tears from their faces. After more than two years of legal proceedings and anticipation over charges, the students exited the courtroom and shared an embrace.
Upon stepping out of the courthouse, the crowd immediately began chanting “Free Palestine.”
The students said the case was an attempt to discourage people from supporting Palestine and engaging in broader unrest across the country, whether it be regarding ICE, the federal administration or worker’s rights.
“It goes far beyond the people that drop the bombs,” defendant Taylor-Black said. “It is the companies that build those bombs. It is the universities that spend millions on crisis consultants and surveillance software to repress their own students rather than to divest the resources they know are paying for the bombs.”
Stanford students said they had engaged in over 20 peaceful protests but school officials had refused to consider or discuss divestment. That’s when a group of 12 broke into the office.
In filing felony charges, Rosen had maintained that the prosecution has nothing to do with free speech and argued that the students should face consequences for damaging the building.
According to the prosecution, one or more protesters broke a window to enter the president’s office, then let the remaining people through a door. Once inside, the protesters barricaded doors with wires, stacked furniture to block entrances and hung up banners in support of Palestine and Dr. Adnan Al-Bursh, who was killed by Israeli forces. Some students then chanted or sat quietly, while some spilled fake blood made from corn syrup, according to court documents.
Police estimated that the carpet stains, a bent door handle and an assessment of an antique grandfather clock with drops of blood on it, among other damages, contributed to $300,000 in restitution. Evidence, such as messaging records and used cleaning supplies, also showed that students attempted to minimize damage to the building.
Students said they could no longer “sit by” and watch people continue to die in Gaza, which they witnessed in the media and through grieving classmates.
Dozens of people, including renowned Bay Area movie director Boots Riley, showed out to support the students on Monday. In response, students expressed their gratitude to the attendees and a commitment to continue advocating for disparaged people.
Gonzalez said he will continue to help grow Students for Justice in Palestine at Stanford University.
“Until every person on this land is housed … until liberation returns for Palestinian people, until we get all of that, we will not give up,” he said.
