A judge on Tuesday sentenced activist Lauren Handy to four years and nine months in prison for leading a blockade at an abortion clinic in Washington, D.C., in 2020.

Handy, 30, was convicted by a jury last year of two charges under the Freedom of Access to Clinic Entrances Act after she and nine others organized and attended what they described as a “rescue” at the clinic, which involved using chains, bike locks, and ropes to block the clinic entrance.

The Justice Department asked Judge Colleen Kollar-Kotelly to sentence Handy to 6.5 years, saying in a sentencing memorandum that Handy and one of her co-defendants were the two “masterminds who chose the clinic, advertised the event, recruited participants, and planned the crime.”

Handy’s attorneys asked for a one-year sentence, saying Handy intended to lead a peaceful event that involved an “attempt to rescue preborn children from imminent death at the hands of an abortionist who Ms. Handy believed performed illegal late-term procedures.”

Prosecutors noted that the protest was not entirely peaceful as some of the co-defendants pushed their way into the clinic entrance, causing employees to fall to the ground, including a nurse who sprained her ankle. A few of the participants chained themselves together and used chairs to block the clinic entrance for hours until they were arrested.

Kollar-Kotelly observed how Handy’s actions prevented multiple clinic patients from entering the facility.

“Your views took precedence over, frankly, their human needs,” Kollar-Kotelly said.

Handy, who had been in prison for nine months while she awaited her sentencing, has a long history of protesting at abortion clinics. She took matters a step further in 2022 when police discovered she had the remains of five aborted fetuses in her apartment. Handy was never prosecuted for the incident, but her supporters spread graphic visuals of the deformed fetuses on social media.

The incident was not used as evidence in Handy’s abortion clinic case.

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One of Handy’s co-defendants pleaded guilty to a FACE Act charge and received 10 months in prison. The remaining were convicted in trials, and most still await their sentencing.

Handy has said she was protesting the clinic of Dr. Cesare Santangelo, an abortionist the advocacy group Live Action recorded during an undercover operation as saying he “would not help” a baby in the rare event the baby was born alive during a late-term abortion procedure.

This story is developing.