Biography
Greg Boertje-Obed is a Catholic pacifist and anti-nuclear activist best known for the 2012 “Transform Now Plowshares” breach of the Y-12 National Security Complex in Oak Ridge. Alongside Sr. Megan Rice and Michael Walli, he cut through fences, reached a highly secured uranium-related facility, painted messages, and splashed human blood as a symbolic indictment of nuclear weapons production. The group waited to be arrested, explicitly treating prosecution as part of the act’s moral logic.
He was convicted on serious felony counts, including sabotage, and received a 62-month federal sentence. A federal appeals court later overturned the sabotage convictions, leading to his release and resentencing on lesser property-damage convictions—an outcome that became a high-profile example of courts narrowing the application of sabotage law to nonviolent protest at defense sites.
Catholic Worker, peace activist and U.S. Army veteran. With Sister Megan Rice and Michael R. Walli, breached the Y-12 National Security Complex in Oak Ridge, Tennessee on July 28, 2012 — cutting fences and crossing into the heart of the Highly Enriched Uranium Materials Facility, hanging banners reading 'Swords into Plowshares: Spears into Pruning Hooks' and splashing baby bottles of human blood on the walls. Convicted May 2013 of sabotaging the national defense and damaging federal property; sentenced February 2014 to just over five years in federal prison. The sabotage conviction was vacated on appeal in May 2015 and he was resentenced to time served.
Before his later Y-12 action, Boertje-Obed took part in the January 6, 1987 Epiphany Plowshares action at Willow Grove Naval Air Station. Reporting under the name Greg Boertje identifies him as a former Army serviceman from Baltimore. It describes three mistrials, the third declared July 15, 1987, and a fourth trial still ahead. The source does not establish completed jail time for the reported contempt citations. Source: https://merton.bellarmine.edu/files/original/217a22e7feceeb8e66c2c6d1609f0ee7b8b5d8b5.pdf#page=5
The Paschal 2023 Catholic Peace Fellowship Philadelphia newsletter reports participation in the January 28, 2023 Chestnut Hill College discussion following a screening of The Nuns, The Priests and The Bombs. The profile identifies him with a Duluth Catholic Worker community and says his first Plowshares participation was the 1985 Trident II Pruning Hooks action in Rhode Island. It describes subsequent submarine and battleship protests and substantial imprisonment, without further admission or discharge dates. Source: https://www.cpfphila.com/ARTICLES/2023_May/2023-05-Paschal-CPF-Newsletter.pdf#page=8
Missing initial detention review October 13, 2026: Original Nuclear Resister issue 167, page 1, rendered and visually inspected, documents immediate Blount County booking after the July 28, 2012 action. Patrick O'Neill's original September 13 report and direct interview individually establish continued detention from July 28 and actual September 11 release. This initial detention is added separately from the existing post-verdict May 2013-May 2015 imprisonment.
February 1986 verdict and intervening freedom
The Trident II Pruning Hooks report names Greg Boertje, John Heid, Roger Ludwig, Sheila Parks, Suzanne Schmidt and George Veasey as convicted February 4, 1986 before Judge Thomas Needham of possession of burglary tools, trespass and malicious destruction of property. It expressly says all six were free pending future March 31 sentencing. Thus initial April 1985 detention and later sentenced custody cannot be counted as one uninterrupted interval. Greg’s brief courtroom lockup ended when trial resumed, not a separately established multiday stay. Any existing separately verified later sentence and actual discharge must be preserved; this issue alone supplies neither a first later admission nor final discharge.
The Nuclear Resister No.38, March 10, 1986, original PDF pages 6.
Earlier White House detention and confirmed January 1985 release
The January 23, 1985 Nuclear Resister report from Jonah House identifies Greg Boertje in a White House peace-banner protest on the Saturday after the Holy Innocents observance. After arrest, he spent the weekend in jail and underwent psychological questioning before physical release on personal recognizance late on January 2, 1985. A January 23 appearance on an unlawful-entry charge was still forthcoming. The preceding Pentagon citation ended in release and is not treated as the same uninterrupted detention. The report does not separately print a jail-admission date or establish a complete numeric custody total; neither is inferred. Catholic Peace Fellowship’s account of its 2023 panel explicitly identifies Greg Boertje-Obed as a participant in the 1985 Trident II Pruning Hooks action, providing the historical identity bridge to the earlier name.
The Nuclear Resister No. 28, January 23, 1985, original PDF page 6 (printed page 5); Catholic Peace Fellowship, Paschal 2023 newsletter, pages 7–9, especially page 8.
Additional original custody evidence
The Trident II Pruning Hooks update individually names Greg Boertje with Roger Ludwig and George Veasey as beginning the seventh month of actual imprisonment after refusing release conditions. This verifies prolonged initial pretrial custody, but a seventh month in progress is not seven completed months or a fixed day total. No unprinted physical admission or release is assigned. The later February 1986 report confirms an intervening period of freedom before sentencing, so this is not continuous custody through a later term.
The Nuclear Resister No.35, October 24, 1985: PDF page 4; PDF page 7.
1985 Trident II pretrial confinement at ACI
The December 9, 1985 Nuclear Resister directory individually lists Greg Boertje at the Adult Correctional Institutions in Cranston, Rhode Island, awaiting trial for the April 1985 Trident submarine disarmament action. The January 20, 1986 issue individually moves Greg to its previously-listed, recently-released list. This establishes a distinct actual pretrial confinement and a release by the latter issue, not a measured continuous April-to-January interval. Neither a first jail-admission day nor a physical-release day is printed; release year cannot safely be narrowed to 1985 rather than early 1986. The existing separate White House detention ending January 2, 1985 is not this Rhode Island episode. The later February 1986 verdict while free does not supply a new jail intake or the end of this earlier stay. The Catholic Peace Fellowship organizer’s 2023 biography explicitly links Greg Boertje-Obed to the 1985 Trident II Pruning Hooks action.
The Nuclear Resister No.36, December 9, 1985, original page4; The Nuclear Resister No.37, January 20, 1986, original page4; Catholic Peace Fellowship, Paschal2023, original page8.
The original individually names Greg Boertje among the six Trident II Pruning Hooks participants arrested April 18, 1985 and held on $18,000 bond. The existing Greg Boertje-Obed identity and case bridge this shorter spelling. Fill the initial custody phase only; later custody and bail gaps remain separate.
Nuclear Navy Plowshares trespass and property-damage prosecution, USS Iowa. Six months imposed July 22, 1988. Actual pretrial jail since April 3; final release and full duration unknown.
KCNSC release. NR203/204.
The Good News Plowshares chronology names Kathy Boylan, Greg Boertje-Obed and Michele Naar-Obed as the participants taken into Newport News City Jail on April 9, 1993 and actually released on August 24, 1993, after their property-destruction trial. This custody period is separate from the other recorded actions. Source.
April 2024 Kansas City custody
The Nuclear Resister’s April 16, 2024 compilation individually identifies Greg Boertje-Obed among ten people arrested at the Kansas City National Security Campus on April 15. All ten were handcuffed, transported to a police office for processing and released that day without bond. The June 3 arraignment was still prospective; no completed court outcome or numeric custody duration is assigned. Contemporary participant accounts and reporting.
The issue reports that Magistrate Clifford Shirley entered a not-guilty plea for Greg Boertje-Obed at the August 2, 2012 initial Transform Now Plowshares hearing after Boertje-Obed offered several statements explaining his action. He remained in the initial pretrial detention while Megan Rice and Michael Walli were released; no new prison sentence was imposed at that hearing.
The September 15, 2015 Transform Now Plowshares report describes Judge Amul Thapar’s resentencing of Megan Rice, Greg Boertje-Obed and Michael Walli in the remaining depredation-of-property case after the sabotage conviction was overturned and the three were released from prison in May. Each received two years of “unsupervised” supervised probation, with three conditions: commit no local, state or federal crime; enter no U.S. nuclear facility; and report any arrest to the probation officer. The judge upheld the reported $52,000 restitution demand for the action, not an individually allocated new fine. These probation conditions are not an additional period of imprisonment. Contemporary resentencing report.
The April 30, 2013 report says Judge Amul Thapar excluded the necessity defense, Nuremberg principles, First Amendment arguments and testimony about religious or other good motives before the Transform Now Plowshares trial. He permitted testimony about intent, an element of the sabotage allegation. It also reports former Attorney General Ramsey Clark’s April 23 testimony that nuclear-weapons production violated the Nuclear Non-Proliferation Treaty, and his distinction between treaty obligations and international law. These are reported pretrial rulings and testimony, not a custody interval or later trial result.
The October 6, 2013 Transform Now Plowshares support update reports Judge Amul Thapar’s October 1 denial of the Rule 29 challenge to the sabotage conviction and of a new-trial motion. It attributes a six-and-a-half-to-eight-year guideline estimate to Greg Boertje-Obed while discussing a possible downward departure. That estimate was not an imposed sentence or completed custody. Its prospective sentencing timetable does not replace the later actual hearing or create a new case.
Sources: The Nuclear Resister, source report 622.
The May 15, 2015 Transform Now Plowshares update reports that the Sixth Circuit ordered Greg Boertje-Obed and the other two defendants released on their own recognizance just after 7 p.m. Attorney Bill Quigley relayed the order after the government said it would not oppose release pending resentencing or seek additional imprisonment beyond time already served. This evening report explicitly awaited confirmation of physical release; it does not establish a May 15 discharge. The separately documented May 16 actual release remains the custody endpoint, and no overlapping case or additional imprisonment is created. The Nuclear Resister, May 15, 2015.
The January 26, 2018 report individually names Greg Boertje-Obed among four Catholic Workers arrested at the Des Moines Iowa National Guard Drone Command Center on December 28, 2017. All four spent the night in Polk County Jail and were released on December 29, charged with misdemeanor trespass. It states that Hynes, Bloomer and Boertje-Obed pleaded not guilty; Burney’s separate guilty plea and fine are not attributed to them. An anticipated jury trial is not a verdict or imposed sentence. No additional whole-day custody total is inferred.
Ralph Hutchison’s September 12, 2012 account identifies Melissa Kirby as the prosecutor at Greg Boertje-Obed’s detention hearing and confirms his physical release from Blount County Detention Center at 8:30 p.m. on September 11. That initial custody phase is distinct from the later 2013–2015 Y-12 imprisonment.
The Nuclear Resister, contemporary detention-hearing report.
The support appeal published under a May 27, 2013 heading places Greg Boertje-Obed at Irwin County Detention Center in Ocilla, Georgia, and lists the local historical register number 22090. Its body anticipates a January 28, 2014 sentencing date and appears to have been updated after publication, so the heading does not independently date that location to May 27. The local register number is not a replacement for a federal Bureau of Prisons identifier. The appeal identifies Judge Amul R. Thapar and reports the revocation of pretrial release after the May jury verdict. The anticipated hearing is not the actual sentencing date.
Sources: https://www.nukeresister.org/2013/05/27/support-needed-for-transform-now-plowshares-resisters/
The May 15, 2013 account describes the progression from the original misdemeanor trespass accusation to August 2012 property-damage charges and a December 4, 2012 superseding sabotage indictment. It also reports the exclusion of proposed necessity, international-law and nuclear-weapons justification evidence at trial. These are historical procedural descriptions; the article’s internally inconsistent action and initial-release dates do not replace the separately established individual custody endpoints.
Additional source: Contemporary procedural account.
An April 25, 2013 case update reports that prosecutors dismissed Count Two, the separate property-destruction charge under 18 U.S.C. sections 1363 and 2, before the Transform Now Plowshares trial. The remaining trial charges were depredation of government property and sabotage. Contemporary source.
The contemporary May 2013 trial package names Assistant U.S. Attorneys Jeff Theodore and Melissa Kirby as prosecutors before Judge Amul Thapar. It describes the jury conviction, immediate remand and the subsequent May 10 order denying release pending sentencing. The September 23 sentencing mentioned in that report was then a future hearing date. Contemporary source.
The account describes Boertje-Obed drawing on his work as a house painter while questioning the quantity of paint included in the government’s repair-cost evidence. It also reports his testimony about earlier Army training for nuclear war. Contemporary source.
Megan Rice’s signed July 28, 2014 letter individually placed Greg Boertje-Obed at USP Leavenworth while their appeal was pending. It documents a historical confinement location, not a new admission, discharge or additional custody total.
Sources: The Nuclear Resister report 545.
Greg Boertje-Obed was actually jailed after the June 20, 2006 North Dakota nuclear-silo action. He remained imprisoned when the February 2007 report was published. Its predicted release is not treated as a completed stay or a physical exit.
Sources: The Nuclear Resister, No.142, No.145.
Art Laffin’s September 2011 Kansas City trial account identifies Greg Boertje-Obed among those prosecuted after the May 2 protest at the new nuclear-weapons-parts plant. Boertje-Obed represented himself before Judge Ardie Bland and requested jail rather than fines and community service; the judge imposed seven days. The account does not independently establish his actual admission, discharge or completion of those seven days. The Nuclear Resister, contemporary source report 840.
