Biography
Mary Anne Grady-Flores is an Ithaca Catholic Worker, photographer, and anti-drone activist. Police arrested her on February 13, 2013 while she photographed a protest at Hancock Field Air National Guard Base near Syracuse, New York. She was convicted of criminal contempt for violating an order of protection issued on behalf of base commander Col. Earl Evans. Judge David Gideon sentenced her to one year in jail and a $1,000 fine on July 10, 2014. She was released on bail on July 17 while she appealed. After the jail term was reduced to six months, she returned to custody on January 19, 2016. She was released again on March 7, 2016 pending further appeal.
Previous biography:
Mary Anne Grady-Flores is an Ithaca Catholic Worker, photographer, and one of three Grady sisters (with Clare Grady and Teresa Grady) who have been central to the U.S. anti-drone movement at Hancock Field Air National Guard Base in upstate New York — the home of the 174th Attack Wing, which pilots Reaper drones over Afghanistan. She was sentenced to one year in the Onondaga County Justice Center in 2016 for re-entering the base in violation of an Order of Protection that the base commander had obtained against her, after she refused to sign a guilty plea that would have required her to stop her drone-protest work.
Mary Anne Grady Flores is a grandmother and peace activist from Ithaca, New York who was imprisoned for protesting U.S. drone warfare at Hancock Air National Guard Base in DeWitt, New York — a facility that trains drone pilots and coordinates drone surveillance and strikes in Afghanistan. Prosecutors employed an unusual legal tactic against her and roughly 30 other activists: an Order of Protection ordinarily used in domestic violence cases, which named base commander Col. Earl A. Evans as the designated "victim" and barred the activists from approaching the base. Grady Flores was the first protester sentenced under this instrument. In July 2014, Judge David Gideon sentenced her to one year in prison — overriding the prosecution's own recommendation against incarceration, citing her role as primary caregiver for her elderly mother. She was released on bond pending appeal. In January 2016, an appellate court upheld her conviction but reduced the sentence to six months, and she was immediately handcuffed in the courtroom and transferred to Jamesville Correctional Facility in East Syracuse. The New York Court of Appeals subsequently ordered her release on $5,000 bail while her appeal continued.
Initial Hancock custody, October 25, 2012
The Upstate Coalition statement dated October 25, 2012 named Mary Anne Grady-Flores among thirteen people still held in jail late that afternoon after a blockade of Hancock Field near Syracuse. The statement reported trespass and disorderly-conduct charges and bail between $250 and $1,000. Four other named participants had already been released on their own recognizance. It does not establish the physical release day for the thirteen still held. This initial October 2012 custody must not be extended through later 2014 sentencing or conflated with other protest cases. No new release date or measured days imprisoned are inferred from this report.
