A Pittsburgh activist and art curator said that when she attempted to start a fire at two different pizza shops one night in October 2019 that she was mentally exhausted from fighting against a racist system.

“My brain broke,” Nicky Jo Dawson told a judge on Thursday. “It, literally, was an act of exhaustion that I felt I could not control at the time.”

Dawson, 39, pleaded guilty to one count of arson and one count of criminal mischief for her actions the night of Oct. 29, 2019.

Allegheny County Common Pleas Judge Kelly Bigley ordered Dawson to serve three years probation, with six months on electronic monitoring. Dawson will be allowed to work and travel for work in her role as co-owner and curator of Blaqk House Collections, an art gallery on Smithfield Street.

“I’m not a threat to this community,” Dawson told the judge. “I’m really not. I had a moment.”

According to investigators, Dawson went into Cafe Milano on Sixth Street Downtown about 10:15 p.m. that night, ordered a shot and a beer, and then took the Heineken bottle, put a wick inside it and lit it.

She then threw it into a hot fryer filled with oil, said Deputy District Attorney Rebecca Walker.

“She was observed throwing her lighter into the grease, as well,” the prosecutor said.

Police said Dawson also entered Pizza Milano on Fifth Avenue Uptown, at 11:05 p.m. where they said she set a fire in the woman’s restroom and to a stack of pizza boxes.

No one was hurt in either incident, and property damage was minimal.

Dawson had been vocal in protesting Milano’s after a manager at the Uptown location, Mahmut Yilmaz, was accused of attacking and assaulting Jade Martin on Jan. 12, 2018.

A video of the attack went viral, and the manager was charged. But he was later found not guilty.

During Dawson’s hearing on Thursday, defense attorney Heath Leff said that his client is civic minded and active in the community. He said her actions that night stemmed from mental exhaustion, desperation and misguided efforts over her frustration at a lack of accountability for Martin’s assault.

“She knows this was the wrong way to go about advocating to right the wrongs of the world,” he said. “These were a symbolic gesture that, thankfully, didn’t get worse than they could have been.”

Bigley said that in either instance, it could have been a completely different outcome.

“In one second, that place could have gone up like a tinderbox,” the judge said. “It’s only by the grace of God nothing happened, and no one was injured and no one died.”

But Dawson responded: “Somebody was hurt. Jade was hurt. I was hurt. The whole community was hurt.”

Bigley said she had no control over that case and was focusing on the ones in front of her. She also told Dawson that she was glad her actions were not trying to send a message.

“If you had done it for a cause, then you are clearly at a point where your advocacy is no longer productive, and in fact, it would be counter-productive,” the judge said.

She acknowledged that the recommended guideline range for Dawson called for 22 to 36 months incarceration. But Bigley also noted that Dawson has no prior criminal convictions, has not been in trouble since her arrest and is working in the community.

“I do think you have a lot of gifts to give,” the judge said. “But don’t let it consume you.”

“My business is my advocacy,” Dawson replied. “I’m not looking to go back, harass or hurt anyone. That was never my intent in the first place.”

But she continued, “I still struggle with it, because as I sit here today, nothing has changed.”

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