A Climate Activist Who Targeted a Degas Sculpture at the National Gallery of Art Is Found Guilty
The U.S. Department of Justice announced today that Timothy Martin, 55, of Raleigh, N.C., was also found guilty of injury to a National Gallery of Art exhibit, concerning the April 2023 incident in which he and a fellow activist, with the environmentalist group Declare Emergency, targeted the case and base of Edgar Degas's Little Dancer, Age Fourteen, one of the most famous sculptures in the Western art canon and a major tourist draw for the institution.
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Per the DOJ, Martin and his companion, Johanna Smith, caused more than $4,000 in damage, and forced the exhibit to close from public view for 10 days of repairs. Smith pleaded guilty in December 2023 to one count of causing injury to the gallery's exhibit and was sentenced to 60 days in prison, followed by 24 months of supervised release, and ordered to pay a $3,000 fine and $4,062 in restitution.
Since taking office, President Trump has escalated consequences for activism that involves bringing awareness to the climate crisis via targeting artworks. A March 2025 directive, titled Executive Order to Make D.C. Safe and Beautiful, issued broad directives to rectify what the Trump administration has deemed issues of crime and aesthetics in the U.S. capital, including the restoration of monuments, removing graffiti from public spaces, and the creation of the D.C. Safe and Beautiful Task Force, nominally charged with coordinating 'law enforcement efforts.'
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Sprawling through California's midriff, from the far reaches of the San Francisco Bay Area to the southern edge of the San Joaquin Valley, it's farm country: Flat, fertile and crossed-hatched with canals, rail lines and thruways with utilitarian names such as Road No. 32 and Avenue 18½. The myriad small towns are brief interludes amid the dairy and poultry farms and lush carpeting of vegetables, fruit and nut trees that stretch to the hazy-brown horizon. The most populous city, Merced, has fewer than 100,000 residents. (Modesto, with a population of around 220,000, is split between the 5th and 13th districts.) Democratic Rep. Adam Gray was elected in November in the closest House race in the country, beating the Republican incumbent, John Duarte, by 187 votes out of nearly 211,000 cast. The squeaker was a rematch and nearly a rerun. Two years prior, Duarte defeated Gray by fewer than 600 votes out of nearly 134,000 cast. Not surprisingly, both parties have made the 13th District a top target in 2026; handicappers rate the contest a toss-up, even as the field sorts itself out. (Duarte has said he would not run again.) The midterm election is a long way off, so it's impossible to say how the Epstein controversy will play out politically. But there is, at the least, a baseline expectation of transparency, a view that was repeatedly expressed in conversations with three dozen voters across the district. Zachery Ramos, a 25-year-old independent, is the founder of the Gustine Traveling Library, which promotes learning and literacy throughout the Central Valley. Its storefront, painted with polka dots and decorated with giant butterflies, sits like a cheery oasis in Gustine's four-block downtown, a riot of green spilling from the planter boxes out front. Inside, the walls were filled with commendations and newspaper clippings celebrating Ramos' good works. As a nonprofit, he said, 'we have to have everything out there. All the books. Everything.' Epstein, he suggested, should be treated no differently. 'When it comes to something as serious as that, with what may or may not have taken place on his private island, with his girlfriend' — convicted sex trafficker Ghislaine Maxwell — 'I do think it should all be out in the open,' Ramos said. 'If you're not afraid of your name being in [the files], especially when you're dealing with minors being assaulted, it should 100% be made public.' Ed, a 42-year-old Democrat who manages a warehouse operation in Patterson, noted that Trump released the government's long-secret files on the assassination of Martin Luther King Jr., even though King's family objected. (Like several of those interviewed, he declined to give his last name, to avoid being hassled by readers who don't like what he had to say.) Why, Ed wondered, shouldn't the Epstein files come to light? 'It wasn't just Trump,' he said. 'It was a lot of Republicans in Congress that said, 'Hey, we want to get these files out there.' And I believe if Kamala [Harris] had won, they would be beating her down, demanding she do so.' He smacked a fist in his palm, to emphasize the point. Sue, a Madera Republican and no fan of Trump, expressed her feelings in staccato bursts of fury. 'Apparently the women years ago said who was doing what, but nobody listens to the women,' said the 75-year-old retiree. 'Release it all! Absolutely! You play, you pay, buddy.' Even those who dismissed the importance of Epstein and his crimes said the government should hold nothing back — if only to erase doubts and lay the issue to rest. Epstein 'is gone and I don't really care if they release the files or not,' said Diane Nunes, a 74-year-old Republican who keeps the books for her family farm, which lies halfway between Los Banos and Gustine. 'But they probably should, because a lot of people are waiting for that.' Patrick, a construction contractor, was more worked up about 'pretty boy' Gavin Newsom and 'Nazi Pelosi' — 'yes, that's what I call her' — than anything that might be lurking in the Epstein files. 'When the cat is dead, you don't pick it up and pet it. Right?' He motioned to the pavement, baking as the temperature in Patterson climbed into the low 90s. 'It's over with,' the 61-year-old Republican said of Epstein and his villainy. 'Move on.' At least, that would be his preference. But to 'shut everybody up, absolutely, yeah, they should release them,' Patrick said. 'Otherwise, we're all going to be speculating forever.' Or at least until the polls close in November 2026.
