KNOXVILLE, Tenn. — An 83-year-old nun and two fellow protesters were convicted Wednesday of interfering with national security when they broke into a Tennessee nuclear weapons facility and defaced a uranium processing plant.
It took a jury about 2½ hours to find the protesters guilty of a charge of sabotaging the plant and second charge of damaging federal property in July the Y-12 National Security Complex in Oak Ridge in July.
Defense attorneys said that federal prosecutors had overreached in the charges because of the embarrassment caused by the break-in.
"The shortcomings in security at one of the most dangerous places on the planet have embarrassed a lot of people," defense lawyer Francis Lloyd said. "You're looking at three scapegoats behind me."
Sister Megan Rice, Michael Walli, and Greg Boertje-Obed said they have no remorse.
The defendants spent two hours inside Y-12.