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.
The October 25, 2012 Hancock report individually names Mary Anne Grady Flores among thirteen protesters still being held in jail late that afternoon after arrests at the air base gates and hearings in DeWitt Town Court. All seventeen arrestees were charged with trespass and disorderly conduct and served with protection orders concerning Earl A. Evans; four others were released on their own recognizance. The report does not give this person’s exact release day or a completed custody duration. Bail amounts are not treated as proof of release.
The March 8, 2016 release report describes Mary Anne Grady-Flores receiving permission for a February 26 visit to her dying mother, who had entered home hospice on February 19. Grady-Flores described making the visit shackled at her wrists, waist and ankles. This supervised visit is not treated as a release from custody. The same report confirms the March 7 release on $5,000 bail pending appeal already recorded in her custody history. The Nuclear Resister, March 8, 2016 release report.
The January 2016 reports distinguish Mary Anne Grady-Flores’s appeal decision from her actual return to custody. She received notice on January 12 that Onondaga County Court Judge Thomas Miller upheld her conviction but reduced the nominal one-year sentence to six months. The updated January 19 account then describes her being handcuffed in court and taken to Jamesville Correctional Facility. The source’s historical jail mailing listing identifies her as number 12001966. Neither the January 12 notice nor the reduced nominal sentence establishes a new custody interval or completed six-month term; her existing custody endpoints and totals are preserved. Contemporary report, The Nuclear Resister.
The sheriff’s roster reproduced with the April 22, 2011 Hancock Field protest report individually named Mary Anne Grady-Flores among the people arrested outside the base in the anti-drone demonstration. The article reports trespassing and obstruction-of-justice charges. It describes handcuffs, a wait, and boarding a bus intended for Justice Center processing; it does not establish an individual jail-admission or release time.
Sources: The Nuclear Resister, report 893.
The July 18 update to the contemporary sentencing report explicitly confirms Grady-Flores physically left the Syracuse Justice Center on bail July 17, 2014 after her July 10 admission. Judge David S. Gideon imposed the sentence, while Judge Thomas J. Miller’s separate role concerned the appellate stay. The nominal one-year term was not a year actually served. This source context does not create a second copy of either currently recorded contempt case or add the same seven-day interval again.
Sources: The Nuclear Resister report 551.
