DeWitt, N.Y. -- A grandmother of three was sentenced to one year at the Onondaga County jail Thursday in DeWitt Town Court after she was found guilty of violating an order of protection while protesting at Hancock Air Base.

Mary Anne Grady-Flores, 58, of Ithaca, was charged with second-degree criminal contempt on Feb. 13, 2013 after an order of protection was issued, barring 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, on Oct. 25, 2012. The protection order was valid for one year.

Onondaga County sheriff's deputies arrest people protesting the military's use of drone aircraft at the Hancock Field Air National Guard Base in DeWitt.

She went to trial

on May 15 and found guilty on the charge.

Grady-Flores and 11 other defendants, all members of the Upstate Coalition to Ground the Drones and End the Wars, were sentenced on February 7 by DeWitt Town Justice David Gideon to 15 days at the Jamesville Penitentiary after being found guilty of disorderly conduct.

Ellen Grady said her sister was not a threat to Evans and was unaware that her actions in February violated the protection order.

She said her sister was there not to protest but to photograph those who were at the base. However, in his sentencing statement, Gideon said that whether or not Grady-Flores was an active participant in the protest was "completely irrelevant" to her conviction on the criminal contempt charge, as she admitted she was on base property.

Clare Grady (hands up) and her sister, Mary Anne Grady-Flores (on the left) are being arrested for protesting against drones, at the Thompson Road entrance to the New York Air National Guard.

The base's boundaries were in question and not clearly demarcated, Grady said. Those convicted of disorderly conduct in February originally had also been charged with trespassing, but Gideon dismissed the charge, due to conflicting testimony given over the location of the boundaries.

A pre-sentence investigation report conducted by the Onondaga County Probation Department suggested Grady-Flores' sentence be a conditional discharge, a suggestion that Gideon stated to be "devoid of any appropriate substance which to intelligently base its conclusion," noting that Grady-Flores has twice refused to pay fines and surcharges imposed by the court.

Noting that he saw incarceration as the only option to send a message, Gideon said a conditional discharge or probation would only allow Grady-Flores to "thumb her nose at the law once again."

In addition to the year in jail, Grady-Flores was fined $1,000, a state surcharge of $205 and ordered to submit a DNA sample at the cost of $50.

Brady said her sister will appeal the ruling.