Ellen Grady on Trial for Resisting Genocide
Yesterday, I was sentenced at the Federal Court in Syracuse, NY, by Judge Dancks. She gave me a fine totaling $1500 and $10 court cost. As Judge Dancks handed down my sentence, she never addressed my questions for the court, which you can read in my statement below. She basically said I stayed in the lobby of the Federal Building when I was told to leave, that I unreasonably inconvenienced people, that I broke the law, and that I was self-serving. She said she wouldn’t give me community service because I do that already and that she wouldn’t give me jail time because I would wear it as a badge of honor.
The judge said if I were anything like her, I would sit up and take notice if I got hit in the pocket book. At that time, I explained to the judge that in good conscience I could NOT pay a fine to the Government that is participating in genocide. My sister, Clare, said after court, “what we just witnessed in court is the war of the myths”. I have ten days to pay the fine. With my community, I’m trying to think creatively about what to do next. Thank you, everyone, for the words of encouragement and all the acts of resistance to the genocide in Gaza! Free Mahmoud Khalil!
Wednesday, March 12th, 2025 ~In Syracuse Federal Court, Judge Dancks sentenced Ellen Grady to a fine totaling $1,500 for 2 misdemeanors, saying that she broke the law sitting in front of the Federal Building. On the plaza after sentencing, Ellen’s sister, Clare, stated, “What we just witnessed in court was a war of the myths.” Ellen’s powerful statement challenging the court is below. On November 15th, 2024, Grady and eight members of the Berrigan Collective attempted to speak with the US Senators of NY, Schumer and Gillibrand, urgently asking them to support the Senate Joint Resolution of Disapproval that was to be voted on, possibly that night.
The nine sat in the lobby of the same federal building. Their statement read that they came to ask their Senators to say no to sending the US’s illegal $20 billion more in support of Israel committing genocide in violation of the Leahy Laws. Federal Marshals moved the nine outside to the plaza. Ellen and two others sat in front of one of the doors. The Marshals locked the other four doors, preventing the public from entering. Ellen returned to sit in front of one of the doors three more times. She was then arrested.
To see photos of Ellen and supporters, go to IthacaCatholicWorkers.org where they will be posted later.
Ellen’s Sentencing Statement:
Good afternoon, Judge Dancks. And good afternoon to all the people working in the court.
I’m grateful for this moment to say a few remarks before my sentencing.
- 70,000 Palestinians have been murdered with US weapons and funding
- 20,000 of them precious children,
- 112,000 people injured
- 14,000 people are missing in Gaza, many of whom are still buried under the rubble.
A little girl named Hind Rajab, whose story I shared during the trial, cried out for help from her family’s bullet-riddled car: “Come take me. You will come and take me?… I’m so scared. Please come. Please come and take me…”
The two ambulance workers who tried to save Hind were given permission by the Israeli Defense Forces to rescue her. Yet, they were incinerated by a US-made weapon fired by the Israeli Defense Forces.
As we know, Hind and her family were murdered in that car by 335 bullets. Nobody was allowed to rescue her. Her 5-year-old dear self. God forgive us.
Your honor, you have determined that I am guilty of unreasonably blocking a door and that I didn’t follow a lawful order.
Today, I am being held accountable for my actions on November 15, 2024, and I stand before you to accept that responsibility.
The central question during my trial – what is reasonable in the face of genocide – still stands before this Court today and before all people of conscience:
IN light of the documented genocide committed against the Palestinian people by Israel;
IN light of the fact that the United States has supplied the weapons to commit this genocide;
IN light of the fact that under US law, specifically the Leahy Laws and US code against genocide, it is illegal to sell weapons to countries committing gross human rights violations;
IN light of the fact that our leaders, specifically Secretary Blinken and President Biden, knowingly suppressed our own intelligence documenting this ongoing genocide;
IN light of the fact that US aid to Israel – my and your tax dollars – continues to flow while Israel continues its genocidal killing in Gaza and the West Bank – despite the purported ceasefire.
IN light of all of this, the question before this Court – and for all whose tax dollars are funding genocide – is:
What is reasonable? Who will hold our government accountable for breaking the law?
Who will uphold the laws that have been hard won? Laws that are meant to prevent war crimes and genocide.
Who?
What’s your responsibility, Judge Dancks?
What is your responsibility, Mr. McCrobie?
US law is clearly being broken. Genocide is a crime.
We all have a duty to uphold these laws.
You do, Your Honor. You do, Mr McCrobie.
Our US Senators do. In a democracy, everyday people do.
I do. And that is what I came to this Federal Building to do on November 15, 2024.
The prosecution contends that I am just a recidivist who has no regard for the law. The contrary is true. My action on November 15th – and all the other times I’ve been arrested for acts of civil disobedience – have been attempts to uphold laws.
The United States’ government is the one breaking the law with its aggressive war-making and proxy wars. In my lifetime, the government has taken the lives of over 2 million Vietnamese, 58,000 US servicemen, a million people in Central America, over a million people in Iraq, untold numbers in our illegal and immoral drone wars – the list goes on and on.
The prosecutor speaks as if he does not know history. There has been no significant change in this country without everyday people coming together, organizing, and calling those in power to accountability through many forms of protest, including acts of civil disobedience.
The abolitionists, Susan B. Anthony and the women’s suffrage movement, the labor movement, Rosa Parks and the civil rights movement, the antiwar movement, the Stonewall uprising that started the gay rights movement, the environmental movement, and the Black Lives Matter movement, to name a few.
Just across the street from this courthouse in Clinton Square, there is the monument to the Jerry Rescue, where people from Syracuse helped to free a formerly enslaved man named Jerry from the local jail after he had been hunted and jailed by Federal Marshals under the Fugitive Slave Act.
The good people of Syracuse knew back then that sometimes it is reasonable and necessary to take extraordinary actions in the face of injustice, even if it means breaking the law.
As Rev. Dr. Martin Luther King – a courageous leader who our government honors with a Federal holiday – said:
“There is nothing wrong with a traffic law which says you have to stop for a red light. But when a fire is raging, the fire truck goes right through that red light, and normal traffic had better get out of its way. Or, when a man is bleeding to death, the ambulance goes through those red lights at top speed.”
The US-funded genocide in Gaza is a raging fire.
The erosion of our First Amendment rights is a raging fire as the government criminalizes any criticism of Isreal’s genocide in Gaza. There is no Isreal exception to the First Amendment!
The blatant violation of Due Process by the Trump Administration is a raging fire. Mahmoud Kahlil, a Green Card holder who has not been charged with any crime, let alone been convicted, was ripped from his pregnant wife and disappeared into a jail cell for sounding the alarm about the ongoing genocide in Gaza.
Dr. King’s quote ends with a call to action that is as urgent today as it was when he wrote it:
“Disinherited people all over the world are bleeding to death from deep social and economic wounds. They need brigades of ambulance drivers who will have to ignore the red lights of the present system until the emergency is solved.”
I ask this Honorable Court and Mr. McCrobie to join me in demanding that our government uphold its laws against funding genocide.
