Climate Activist Sentenced To 2 Years For $58K Damage To National Archives

A climate change activist who smeared red powder on a case containing the original U.S. Constitution was sentenced on 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 act of defacing the historic document did not further his cause.

Zepeda, a leader of the climate group Declare Emergency, pleaded guilty in August to the destruction of federal property. His co-defendant, Jackson Green, was sentenced earlier this week to 18 months in prison.

Zepeda, 35, of Maryland, was charged alongside Green, who is from Utah. Although the Constitution itself was not damaged, the National Archives was forced to evacuate visitors and remained closed for four days to clean up, with repairs totaling more than $58,000. Prosecutors said the stunt frightened visitors who mistakenly believed the red powder was a harmful substance.

Judge Jackson criticized the act as “eco-vandalism,” saying it only strengthened climate change skeptics’ views of activists as “just a bunch of crackpots.” Zepeda’s vandalism came just months after he helped plan similar protests, including one in April 2023, when activists targeted the National Gallery of Art by smearing paint on Edgar Degas’ sculpture “Little Dancer Aged Fourteen.” In November, Zepeda and Green were involved in another protest at the National Gallery, where Green painted the words “Honor Them” on the wall next to the Shaw 54th Regiment Memorial.