Shailene Woodley to stand trial in January
Shailene Woodley will stand trial on January 25 2017.
The 24-year-old actress was arrested and charged for one count of criminal trespassing and one count of engaging in a riot, after peacefully protesting about the Dakota Access Pipeline on October 10, and though she was initially expected to be in court on Monday (10.24.16), it has now been revealed she won’t have to appear before a North Dakota judge until the new year.
Shailene – who was one of 27 protesters arrested – pleaded not guilty to the misdemeanor offences last week but if she is found guilty in state court in Mandan in January, she could face two months in jail and $3,000 in fines.
The ‘Divergent’ star was among around 100 protesters who turned up to the site to air their views against the proposed pipeline plans, which aims to transport crude oil from the North Dakota Bakken region through South Dakota and Iowa into Illinois, crossing the Missouri River.
Protesters fear the pipeline project could potentially cause irreversible harm to the drinking water for the Standing Rock community – who live just one mile from the river – as well as the river’s ecosystem.
It seems her actions have not gone unnoticed either, as it was recently revealed the Department of Justice has halted the pipeline project and ordered the development company to suspend all construction work.
The ‘Snowden’ actress previously said: "That is beautiful, but that is not a win. A win is when they say ‘We are not moving this pipeline to some other location, to affect clean water, but we are going to stop it and fix it.’"
The ‘Descendants’ actress – who streamed the protest and her subsequent arrest on a Facebook Live chat – originally claimed she was being arrested because of her fame.
She said in the video: "I’m being arrested! I was down there with everybody else! I don’t know what’s going on, as soon as they came I left. It’s because I’m well known, it’s because I have 40,000 people watching."
