WASHINGTON (AP) — A climate change activist who spilled red powder on a file containing the original of the American Constitution was sentenced Friday to two years in prison for his role in vandalism earlier this year at the National Archives in Washington, D.C.

U.S. District Judge Amy Berman Jackson told Donald Zepeda that his attack on the exhibition of the priceless document did nothing to advance his case.

“You always think this is related to the problem of climate change, and I can’t agree with that,” she said.

Zepeda, one of the leaders of Declare Emergency, was charged along with another member of the climate change awareness group. Jackson sentenced Zepeda’s co-defendant, Utah resident Jackson Green, to 18 months in prison on Tuesday.

Zepeda, 35, of Maryland, pleaded guilty in August to destruction of federal property. The Constitution itself was not damaged.

The judge said “eco-vandalism” does not benefit the environment and only gives climate change skeptics more reason to believe that activists like Zepeda are “just a bunch of weirdos.”

“It’s just plain old vandalism,” she said.

The National Archives evacuated visitors after the attack and remained closed for four days to carry out repairs costing more than $58,000. Prosecutors said the stunt frightened visitors who didn’t know the red substance was paint powder.

“Many likely feared being victims of a chemical weapons attack, a phenomenon that was not uncommon in Washington in the not-so-distant past,” a prosecutor wrote.

Prosecutors had recommended a four-year prison sentence for Zepeda, citing his role in a series of similar actions intended to draw attention to climate change.

He was sentenced to two months in prison for burglarizing an oil facility in 2017. He spent a week in prison for pouring syrup and colored liquid on the steps of the Florida Capitol. He repeatedly blocked roads with other activists.

In April 2023, Zepeda helped plan and implement climate action at the National Gallery of Art, where two other activists daubed paint on the exhibition of Edgar Degas’s “Little Dancer of Fourteen Years” sculpture.

A few months later, in November 2023, Zepeda, Green and other members of Declare Emergency again targeted the National Gallery of Art. This time, Zepeda recorded Green painting the words “Honor Them” on the wall next to the “Shaw 54th Regiment Memorial,” a mural that commemorates one of the first black regiments of the Civil War.

“He committed these same crimes his entire adult life. Indeed, he has made this type of offense his profession,” wrote a prosecutor.

Defense attorney Stephen Brennwald said Zepeda was shocked to learn how much it cost to clean up the mess he helped create.

“But he has come to accept that what he saw as a dramatic moment intended to wake the world from its slumber and climatic stupor has transformed into something else entirely.” the lawyer wrote.