The second of two men accused of throwing cream pies at nationally syndicated columnist Ann Coulter pleaded guilty to misdemeanor assault Monday.
William Zachary Wolff, 25, who now teaches English in Argentina, entered his plea during a telephone conference call, said Wolff's attorney, R. Antonio Felix.
Wolff was fined $250, but the fine will be suspended if he pays $915 in restitution to the University of Arizona for damage caused to a backdrop screen during the incident.
In exchange for his plea, disorderly conduct and criminal damage charges were dismissed, said Deputy Pima County Attorney Noah Van Amburg.
According to police, Wolff and Phillip Edgar Smith threw tofu cream pies at Coulter as she spoke to 2,500 people at the UA's Centennial Hall on Oct. 22, 2004. They missed but splattered a black muslin backdrop.
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Smith accepted the same plea agreement in November.
Wolff agreed to plead guilty, in part, because he succeeded in getting his message out, Felix said. A trial would have just let Coulter bring attention to herself, he said.
Felix said in an e-mail to the Arizona Daily Star that Wolff knew before he threw the pies there would be consequences.
"He took this 'pie-rect' action knowing there would be a consequence, but sometimes the medium is indeed the message," Felix said.
"A letter to the editor saying that the columnist's views were so extreme and inflammatory that she deserved to have a pie thrown at her just doesn't get the same message across — to the same audience — as throwing the pie and accepting the consequences."
The original charges against the pair were dismissed March 18 after neither the arresting officer nor Coulter appeared to testify against them. Both Coulter and a UA police spokesman said the Pima County Attorney's Office failed to properly notify them of the trial. The case was refiled in April.
Attempts to reach Coulter through her publisher, Universal Press Syndicate, were unsuccessful.
