Seattle — A woman charged with taking part in one of a string of attacks by the Earth Liberation Front, including a 2001 arson at the University of Washington’s Center for Urban Horticulture, has been found guilty of two charges of arson and faces a prison sentence of up to five years on each charge, The Seattle Times reported.

But after a three-week trial in the U.S. District Court in Tacoma, Wash., jurors deadlocked on three other charges, including the most serious one, which was connected with the use of a “destructive device” in a crime of violence and which alone carries a mandatory minimum sentence of 30 years.

The defendant, Briana Waters, a 32-year-old music teacher who has a 3-year-old daughter, was a student at Evergreen State College, in Olympia, Wash., at the time of the attack on the Seattle horticultural-research facility. Prosecutors say she served as a lookout during the raid in the early-morning hours of May 21, 2001, while four accomplices attacked the horticulture facility with a firebomb set with a timer that caused the device to ignite soon afterward.

Two of the four alleged accomplices testified against Ms. Waters as part of plea-bargaining agreements. They face prison terms likely to be between three and seven years.

According to charges and admissions as part of plea bargains, the attack was one of more than 20 carried out by members of an underground group known as the Earth Liberation Front from 1996 to 2001 on commercial and academic facilities. Federal officials have estimated the damage caused in those attacks at $40-million.

A nine-year investigation of those attacks has resulted in arrests and plea bargains by a dozen defendants. Ms. Waters is the only accused person who has gone to trial.

In the case of the University of Washington horticulture-research center, the saboteurs were misinformed about the kind of research that was taking place. They believed researchers there were conducting genetic engineering of poplar trees, but the scientists were working on hybridization of poplars using centuries-old cross-pollination techniques.

The university rebuilt the facility at a cost of $7-million and reopened it in 2004. —Peter Monaghan