photo credit: Noah Abrams/KRCB
Animal rights activist Zoe Rosenberg speaks
outside the Sonoma County Courthouse following
the sentencing of fellow activist Wayne Hsiung on
Thursday, November 30th, 2023.

After a Sonoma County jury found him guilty earlier this month, animal rights activist Wayne Hsiung was sentenced in Sonoma County Superior Court Thursday.

He was facing up to three-and-a-half years in prison, but the practicing attorney and former Berkeley mayoral candidate may not even serve three-and-a-half weeks.

After a two-month trial spanning from September to November, the jury found Hsiung guilty for trespass, and conspiracy to trespass at two commercial poultry facilities outside Petaluma.

A judge sentenced him to 90 days in jail for the offenses.

According to attorney Izaak Schwaiger, who represented Hsiung at sentencing, he’s likely to be released in only a week’s time, thanks to credit and time served.

The judge also ordered Hsiung to two years of probation, and gave him a 50-yard stay-away order from Sunrise Farms and Reichardt Duck Farm.

Those are the two facilities where Hsiung and dozens of other activists staged controversial protests in 2018 and 19. And they judge ordered he have no contact with the named co-conspirators from the action at Sunrise Farms.

Hsiung’s father, Hansen Hsiung, spoke about the sentence outside the courthouse.

"I expect something worse than this," Hansen Hsiung said. "So I feel great relief, even though I know that Wayne doesn't deserve any jail sentence, doesn't deserve to be convicted as a criminal."

The elder Hsiung said the focus now should be reconciliation.

"I just hope that the farm owner and the movement can find more common ground to treat the animals more humanely," the elder Hsiung said. "So that...we can live happy with the animal[s], with other human being[s]."

In a victim impact statement, Mike Weber, co-owner of Sunrise Farms, spoke of the emotional damage the activists' actions inflicted on himself and his employees; and of the material costs to beef up security at the facility.

Weber maintains the claims of inhumane conditions at Sunrise have no basis.

Hsiung, through his lawyer, acknowledged and apologized for the harm inflicted on Weber, and offered thanks to the jury for their work.