Nun, 84, Gets 3 Years for Breaking Into Uranium Locker

An 84-year-old nun has been sentenced to nearly three years in prison for breaking into and defacing a storage bunker holding bomb-grade uranium in a peace demonstration at a Tennessee weapons plant. Megan Rice was sentenced Tuesday along with activists Greg Boertje-Obed, 58, and Michael Walli, 65. The men were sentenced to more than five years in prison. All sentences were less than the recommended minimum guidelines, the Knoxville Sentinel reports.

Rice asked Judge Amul Thapar to put her in prison for life, but he declined. "I just can’t accommodate you on that," he said. The three activists cut through three fences on July 28, 2012, and reached a storage bunker that holds the nation's primary supply of bomb-grade uranium. They painted messages, hung banners, and threw blood on the bunker wall. While officials claimed there was never any danger of the protesters reaching materials that could be detonated or used to assemble a dirty bomb, the break-in raised serious questions about security. (More uranium stories.)