Donald Zepeda gets two years in prison for destroying an exhibition about the constitution

WASHINGTON (AP) — A climate change activist who dumped red powder on a case containing the original copy of the U.S. Constitution was sentenced Friday to two years in prison for his role in the vandalism earlier this year at the National Archives in Washington, D.C.

U.S. District Judge Amy Berman Jackson told Donald Zepeda that his push to show the priceless document did nothing to advance his case.

“You still think this is related to the problem of climate change, and I don’t agree with that,” she said.

Zepeda, a leader of Declare Emergency, was accused of being another member of the climate change awareness group. Jackson sentenced Zepeda’s co-defendant, Utah resident Jackson Green, to 18 months in prison on Tuesday.

Zepeda, 35, of Maryland, pleaded guilty in August to destruction of federal property. The constitution itself was not damaged.

The judge said “eco-vandalism” does not benefit the environment and only gives climate change skeptics more reason to believe activists like Zepeda are “just a bunch of idiots.”

“It’s just plain old vandalism,” she said.

The National Archives evacuated visitors after the attack and remained closed for four days to make repairs costing more than $58,000. Prosecutors said the stunt scared visitors who did not know the red substance was paint powder.

“Many undoubtedly feared that they were the victims of a chemical weapons attack, a phenomenon that was not uncommon in D.C. in the not-too-distant past,” one prosecutor wrote.

Prosecutors had handed Zepeda a four-year prison sentence, citing his role in a series of similar stunts designed to draw attention to climate change.

He was sentenced to two months in prison for breaking into an oil factory in 2017. He spent a week in jail for pouring syrup and colored liquid on the steps of Florida’s capitol building. He has repeatedly blocked roads with other activists.

In April 2023, Zepeda helped plan and implement climate action at the National Gallery of Art, where two other activists smeared paint on the exhibition of Edgar Degas’ sculpture ‘Little Dancer Aged Fourteen’.

Months later, in November 2023, Zepeda, Green and other members of Declare Emergency again targeted the National Gallery of Art. This time, Zepeda recorded Green painting the words “Honor Them” on the wall next to “The Shaw 54th Regiment Memorial,” a mural that commemorates one of the Civil War’s first black regiments.

“He has committed these crimes his entire adult life. He has made this type of crime his profession,” a prosecutor wrote.

Attorney Stephen Brennwald said Zepeda was shocked when she learned how much it cost to clean up the mess he helped make.

“But he has come to accept that what he intended as a dramatic moment intended to wake the world from its climate slumber and stupor has turned into something completely different,” the lawyer wrote.