Mary Anne Grady-Flores, a 58-year-old Ithaca, New York, grandmother of three, faces a one-year county jail sentence after being charged with second-degree criminal contempt. The punishment comes after her repeated participation in peaceful anti-drone protests at the Hancock Air Base in DeWitt, New York.

In October 2012, Grady-Flores was taken into custody after a drone protest. According to the Syracuse Post-Standard, 16 people from the Upstate Coalition to Ground the Drones and End the Wars (UCGDEW) blocked three gates at the New York National Guard Hancock Field during the demonstration. They were charged with trespassing and disorderly conduct, and a protection order was eventually issued to prevent Grady-Flores from going near Col. Earl Evans, the mission support group commander at the 174th Attack Wing of the New York Air National Guard. Boing Boing notes that protection orders are at times given to non-violent stalkers, and this one was valid for one year, according to the paper.

Timing was not on Grady-Flores' side. In February 2013, Grady-Flores and 11 other UCGDEW members were being sentenced (this time to 15 days at a local penitentiary following new disorderly conduct charges; trespassing charges were dismissed). According an account Ellen Grady (Grady-Flores' sister) gave the Post-Standard, Grady-Flores was in attendance at the base to photograph the events this time rather than protest herself. But in the initial sentencing hearing, DeWitt Town Justice David Gideon said her intent was "completely irrelevant" to her additional criminal contempt charge since Grady-Flores admitted to being on base property. Grady told the Post-Standard that Grady-Flores "was not a threat to Evans and... unaware that her actions in February violated the protection order." Grady-Flores eventually went to trial for criminal contempt in May and was found guilty. Her sentencing took place this week.

According to Boing Boing, Grady-Flores' recommended sentence did not originally include jail time. However, that might allow Grady-Flores to "thumb her nose at the law once again," the judge said, according to the Post-Standard. He therefore issued the maximum sentence allowable—one year of jail time—to stop such protests. Boing Boing reports that the criminal contempt verdict is being appealed.

According to the Post-Standard, Grady-Flores will also take a financial hit for her actions. She was fined $1,000, given a state surcharge of $205, and ordered to submit a DNA sample costing $50.

These most recent incidents were not the only times Grady-Flores was involved in anti-drone protests in central New York. In 2011, she was part of the "Hancock 38," a group which was apprehended for protests at the air force base. According to Democracy Now (hearing transcript), those protests concerned the MQ-9 Reaper drones being flown remotely over Afghanistan from Syracuse since late 2009. The video below shows Grady-Flores making reference to that experience while testifying in DeWitt earlier this year in regard to the October 2012 incident.

"When I learned that drones were being piloted from Hancock Airbase, I knew that, like my co-defendants, I had to go to Hancock to call a halt to this war crime, upholding our US Constitution, Article 6, Sect. 2 in relation to the codified treaties the US has signed on to, the UN Charter and the Geneva Conventions, the International Civil and Political Rights Covenant Article 6, which codifies the obligation of the United States to respect the right to life of people at home and abroad," Grady-Flores said (full transcript).