WASHINGTON (CN) — A climate activist was sentenced to two years in prison on Friday for covering the glass display housing the U.S. Constitution with red powder as part of a protest this past February.
Donald Zepeda, a 35-year-old member of activist group Declare Emergency, entered the National Archives Museum on Feb. 14 with co-defendant Jackson Green, where they popped a balloon filled with red powder on the display and themselves.
The sentence comes amid a wave of similar protests at museums around the globe, such as Just Stop Oil in the United Kingdom, where protesters have thrown tomato sauce at and glued themselves to famous pieces of art.
Protesters have stated their intent to end reliance on fossil fuels, but have faced similar terms of incarceration.
U.S. District Judge Amy Berman Jackson said as she passed down the sentence that Zepeda’s action at the Archives— the latest in a string of similar protests — was “unserious, ineffective and unconnected to the climate emergency in any way.”
The Barack Obama appointee said the sentence was necessary to deter others from harming important pieces of America’s cultural heritage in furtherance of a “misguided” desire to enact change.
“The message has to be clear: eco-vandalism is not a good idea, it’s not ecological, its just vandalism,” Jackson said.
She ordered Zepeda pay $58,607 to the National Archives for the damage caused to the complex glass structure encasing the Constitution. The document itself was not damaged.
The incident led the Archives to close its rotunda for four days and heighten security procedures.
In a statement before the court, Zepeda defended his actions, describing his frustration with the government’s lack of urgency to respond to the climate crisis and its continued support of the fossil fuel industry.
He specifically cited a 2023 Senate Committee on the Budget report which determined that U.S. taxpayers pay approximately $20 billion a year to the fossil fuel industry.
Zepeda said he understood his actions harmed both Archives employees and the public, particularly the fear he caused visitors, but argued that such heightened emotion was the point.
“We need to feel that real sense of fear and emotion, lest we relegate this issue to future generations who are less able to address the problem,” Zepeda said.
Zepeda had pleaded guilty to one charge of destruction of government property, which carries a maximum of 10 years in prison.
Attorney Stephen Brennwald of firm Frederick Brynn represented Zepeda and defended his actions as righteous.
“He gave up everything to fight for a cause that affects everyone,” Brennwald said, warning that global temperatures are still rising and causing more frequent and devastating natural disasters.
He drew a comparison between Zepeda’s actions and historic civil rights struggles that involved civil disobedience, such as protests against South African apartheid, against segregation and in support of women’s suffrage.
Jackson found little crossover.
“Civil disobedience means disobeying the unjust law,” Jackson said, noting that what Zepeda did had no connection to any law preventing climate action.
Zepeda has participated in several similar protests over the past seven years, including two at the National Gallery of Art in 2023, in which he helped plan, purchased paint and filmed.
His first was in 2017, where he broke into the Kinder Morgan oil pipeline facility in Washington state to shut down the pipeline. A jury convicted him of second-degree burglary, sabotage and malicious mischief, leading to 60 days in prison.
He then engaged in several protests in Florida during 2021, including trespassing in three high schools, pouring chocolate syrup on the steps of the Florida Capitol and blocking an interstate.
In April 2023, Zepeda assisted two other activists in a protest at the National Gallery of Art, just across the street from the federal courthouse in Washington. There, Zepeda filmed the pair as they covered the glass casing for Edgar Degas’ sculpture “Little Dancer of Fourteen Years,” with red handprints and black paint.
One of the activists, Joanna Smith, was sentenced to 60 days in prison in April, while co-defendant Timothy Martin goes on trial Nov. 19.
In November 2023, Zepeda participated in a second protest at the National Gallery of Art, where his co-defendant, Green, wrote “Honor Them” under the placard for Augustus Saint-Guadens’ “The Shaw 54th Regiment Memorial.”
The piece depicts the Civil War 54th Massachusetts Volunteer Infantry, one of the first African American regiments. Jackson sentenced Green on Tuesday to 18 months in prison.
Jackson found each of these incidents as reason to believe Zepeda is not remorseful for his actions and is likely to continue escalating. She denied Brennwald’s request he be allowed to self-surrender and ordered him taken into custody to begin his sentence immediately.