(Ken Silva, Headline USA) The Justice Department is seeking less than one month imprisonment for two climate activists who blocked traffic on the George Washington Memorial Parkway on Feb. 13.
According to the DOJ, the two activists, Donald Zepeda and Holliday Adams, forced all northbound traffic to a halt for approximately thirty minutes until the U.S. Park Police arrived and arrested them.
As noted by the DOJ, the people in the trapped vehicles were incensed.
“The woman in the first car yelled and cursed at the protestors, threw water at them, laid on her car horn, and repeatedly told them to ‘get the fuck out of my way.’ She told the protestors that her son was in the hospital, threatened to run them over and at one point got in her car and inched it toward the protestors,” the DOJ said in its sentencing memorandum, filed on Wednesday.
“A man from a different car ripped away the sign that Defendant Adams and the unidentified protestor were holding and threw it to the side of the road, and then shoved Defendant Zepeda backwards. He also yelled at the protestors to ‘Move!’ and asked why they didn’t go down to the White House.”
Zepeda and Adams both pled guilty to one count of disorderly conduct. The DOJ is seeking a seven-day sentence for Adams and a 30-day sentence for Zepeda—the latter having a longer criminal record.
According to the DOJ’s memorandum, Zepeda has committed multiple crimes across the country over the past five years.
In 2019, for instance, he was convicted of breaking and entering private property and using a pair of bolt cutters to try and shut off an oil pipeline.
Most recently, he and a coconspirator allegedly secreted a balloon containing red powder into the National Archives Rotunda and used it to vandalize the display case of the U.S. Constitution. That offense allegedly took place on Feb. 14, the day after he was arrested for blocking traffic.
Two activists accused of throwing a red powder on the U.S. Constitution display case at the National Archives last month are now facing felony charges Donald Zepeda, 35, of Maryland, and Jackson Green, 27, of Utah, were charged with felony destruction of government property. pic.twitter.com/pXwGTh3C0F
— Carlos Perez (@CarlosP95095856) March 1, 2024
“The cleanup costs exceeded $50,000 and the Rotunda was closed to the public for two days,” the DOJ said of that offense, which is still an open case.
The DOJ said previous, lighter sentences for Zepeda have not discouraged him from criminality.
“A sentence of thirty days of imprisonment and a $750 fine is also necessary in this case to generally deter others, particularly members of the Declare Emergency group, from intentionally blocking public roadways,” the DOJ said.
Ken Silva is a staff writer at Headline USA. Follow him at twitter.com/jd_cashless.
