Patricia Okoumou Sentenced To Probation And Community Service For Statue Of Liberty Climb

Patricia Okoumou

On Tuesday morning, Patricia Okoumou was sentenced to 200 hours of community service and five years probation for climbing the Statue of Liberty in protest of the Trump Administration separating families at the U.S. border, according to NBC New York.

Prosecutors had asked U.S. Magistrate Judge Gabriel Gorenstein to sentence Okoumou to 30 days in prison with 3 years of probation. Judge Gorenstein, who visited the statue with Okoumou before the sentencing, warned the protester that she will see jail time if she breaks the law again.

AM New York reported that Okoumou appeared in court today with her face covered in tape. She had been confined to her Staten Island home since late February after she was arrested for climbing the Southwest Key building in Austin, Texas, in another protest of the government's immigration policies.

"I do not need probation, and I do not belong in prison,” Okoumou said on Tuesday.

Last Fourth of July, the world looked on as Okoumou scaled the statue after breaking away from a protest with the group Rise and Resist, which had placed a large banner emblazoned with the words "Abolish ICE." Okoumou then began climbing the statue on her own, and stayed put for hours until she finally came down.

“When we started putting people in cages that was the straw that broke the camel’s back,” Okoumou told Gothamist. “I had had enough and I didn’t care about the repercussions. We have gone so low as a country I had to climb as high as I could on the Statue of Liberty to raise consciousness.”