Raleigh architect and climate activist Timothy Martin will serve 18 months in prison for vandalizing a display case at the National Gallery of Art, an act he described as civil disobedience meant to inspire action on global warming. A federal judge in Washington, D.C., sentenced Martin on Monday after a jury found him guilty in April on two counts of conspiracy and injuring government property, charges prosecutors brought after he and fellow activist Joanna Smith smeared washable paint on the case containing an Edgar Degas sculpture.
Prosecutors had sought a five-year sentence. In her sentencing, Judge Amy Berman Jackson gave Martin credit for time served, meaning he will be free in roughly a year. He must also pay $4,250 in restitution, serve two years of supervised probation and complete 150 hours of community service — 20 hours of which must involve cleaning graffiti. “This is the work we have to do,” he told The N&O in February, “to wake up, grow up and step up. Right now, we’re living in a fairytale matrix created by the American empire ... It really is a calling from our better selves that is in us, that’s been stolen from us and beaten out of us.”
For Martin, a Raleigh architect and father of two, the prospect of time in a cell was trifling compared to the death toll that will follow if the global temperature rises by 2 degrees Celsius — roughly 1 billion people, according to a 2023 study.
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