American Marxist terrorist conspiracy (1975?1984)
The
United Freedom Front
(UFF) was a small American
Marxist
organization active in the 1970s and 1980s. It was originally called the
Sam Melville
/
Jonathan Jackson
Unit
, and its members became known as the
Ohio 7
when they were brought to trial. Mainly led by
Raymond Luc Levasseur
and assisted by
Tom Manning
, between 1975 and 1984 the UFF carried out at least 20 bombings and ten bank robberies in the northeastern United States, targeting corporate buildings, courthouses, and military facilities.
[1]
[2]
[3]
Brent L. Smith describes them as "undoubtedly the most successful of the leftist terrorists of the 1970s and 1980s."
[4]
The group's members were eventually apprehended and convicted of conspiracy, murder, attempted murder, and other charges.
Activities
[
edit
]
The group was founded in 1975 as the
Sam Melville/Jonathan Jackson Unit
, setting off a bomb at the
Massachusetts State House
under that name, but changed its name to the
United Freedom Front
the same year.
[4]
[5]
The initial members were Raymond Luc Levasseur, the UFF leader, and Raymond's friend Tom Manning, and their respective spouses,
Pat Gros
and Carole Manning.
[4]
Levasseur and Tom Manning were both
Vietnam War
veterans and ex-convicts. The four had worked together in
prison reform
groups before forming the UFF.
[4]
Four other members joined the group in the following years:
Jaan Laaman
and Barbara Curzi (another married couple), Kazi Toure (born Christopher King), and Richard Williams.
[6]
The UFF claimed to oppose
US foreign policy
in Central America, as well as South African
apartheid
. In March 1984 the group detonated a bomb after a warning call at an
IBM
building in
Harrison, New York
reportedly for selling computer parts to the South African regime.
[7]
The UFF's targets included
South African Airways
,
Union Carbide
, IBM,
Mobil
, courthouses, and military facilities.
[8]
[2]
[9]
The UFF called in warnings before all of its bombings, attempting to avoid casualties.
[10]
However, 22 people were injured in one 1976 bombing at the
Suffolk County Courthouse
in Boston, including a courthouse worker who lost a leg.
[10]
[11]
[12]
[13]
The group was most active in the early 1980s.
[5]
The UFF's members lived undercover in middle-class suburbs.
[14]
The UFF funded most of its activities by bank robberies.
[3]
From 1974 to 1983, the UFF, largely led by Levasseur and assisted by Manning, conducted ten bank robberies in the Northeast United States.
[2]
Levasseur initially came up with the idea to rob
Brink's
armored trucks. Over time, the UFF transitioned to robbing banks. From 1980 to 1981, Levasseur and Manning and the UFF were not active, settling into a more stable lifestyle. In 1981, Levasseur and Gros move to a farmhouse outside
Cambridge, New York
living under fake identities. While living outside Cambridge, Levasseur recruited new members Richard Williams,
Jaan Laaman
, and Kazi Toure.
[3]
With the new members, the UFF resumed bank robberies to support bombing operations.
On December 21, 1981,
New Jersey State Police
trooper Philip J. Lamonaco was shot dead during a routine traffic stop of Thomas Manning and Richard Williams.
[15]
Both Manning and Williams were charged with the murder of Lamonaco, allegedly shooting him eight times with a 9mm automatic pistol.
[16]
Manning claimed he was alone in the car at the time of the shooting with the prosecution claiming Williams was present at the scene and shooter of Lamonaco.
[17]
[18]
Manning got life in prison for the shooting and Williams was acquitted.
[
citation needed
]
The investigation of the group intensified after the killing of the police officer leading to a federal task force to be formed in 1983. Toure was captured in North Attleboro, Massachusetts in 1982.
[19]
Two state troopers were wounded in the course of arresting Toure.
[20]
On November 4, 1984, police apprehended Levasseur and Gros near Deerfield, Ohio, and Laaman, Curzi, and Williams in Cleveland.
[21]
The Mannings were captured six months later in
Norfolk, Virginia
.
[19]
Dr. Gus Martin notes that the UFF was "the most enduring of all New Left terrorist groups of the era," evading capture for almost a decade.
[22]
Trials and imprisonment
[
edit
]
The UFF's members were tried repeatedly on various federal and state charges. In March 1986, seven of them (the so-called "Ohio Seven") were convicted of conspiracy, receiving sentences ranging from 15 to 53 years.
[23]
[24]
In 1987, all eight members were charged with
sedition
and racketeering.
[25]
Eventually five accepted plea bargains, had charges against them dropped, or were tried separately, and the trial of the remaining three ended in 1989 with an acquittal for sedition for all three and acquittal for Patricia Levasseur (formerly Gros and now Rowbottom) for RICO Conspiracy and a deadlocked (
hung
) jury on the substantive racketeering charges.
[12]
[25]
[26]
Thomas Manning and Richard Williams were given life sentences for the 1981 murder of state trooper Philip Lamonaco,
[21]
[27]
[28]
and Laaman was convicted in the 1982 attempted murder of two state troopers.
[29]
The activist defense lawyer
William Kunstler
represented UFF members in some of these proceedings.
[25]
[30]
[31]
Toure, Curzi, Gros, and Carol Manning were released during the 1990s,
[32]
[33]
and Levasseur was released in November 2004. Williams died in prison in December 2005,
[28]
Tom Manning died in prison in July 2019
[18]
and Laaman was released in May 2021.
[34]
Legal cases
[
edit
]
- USA v. Patricia Gros: 84-CR-0222
- USA v. Raymond Luc Levasseur et al.: 86-CR-180
In popular media
[
edit
]
- In an episode of
The FBI Files
, "
Radical Agenda
" the FBI investigation of the United Freedom Front was featured and dramatized.
- In a made-for-television movie,
In The Line Of Duty: Hunt For Justice
, 1995, the murder of Trooper Philip Lamonaco was featured, as was the investigation into, and arrests of the members of the terrorist organization the United Freedom Front.
[35]
References
[
edit
]
- ^
Smith, Brent L. (1994).
Terrorism in America : pipe bombs and pipe dreams
. Albany: State University of New York Press. pp. 111?112.
ISBN
0-585-06052-5
.
OCLC
42855404
.
Archived
from the original on February 15, 2022
. Retrieved
February 15,
2022
.
- ^
a
b
c
Phillip Jenkins.
"Case-Study of US Domestic Terrorism: United Freedom Front"
.
Archived
from the original on August 5, 2012.
- ^
a
b
c
Bryan Burrough (2016).
"23 - The Last Revolutionaries - The United Freedom Front, 1981 to 1984"
.
Days Of Rage ? America's Radical Underground, the FBI, and the Forgotten Age of Revolutionary Violence
. Penguin Publishing Group.
ISBN
9780143107972
.
Archived
from the original on May 25, 2023.
- ^
a
b
c
d
Smith 110
- ^
a
b
Martin, Gus (2009).
Understanding Terrorism: Challenges, Perspectives, and Issues
(3 ed.). Sage. p. 433.
ISBN
978-1-4129-7059-4
.
Archived
from the original on September 2, 2021
. Retrieved
December 5,
2020
.
- ^
Smith 110, 112
- ^
"Incident Summary for GTDID: 198403190012"
.
www.start.umd.edu
.
Archived
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. Retrieved
February 15,
2022
.
- ^
Smith 111
- ^
Ronald Kessler (November 9, 1983).
"Group Hit Other Targets, FBI Believes"
(PDF)
.
Washington Post
.
Archived
(PDF)
from the original on May 25, 2023.
- ^
a
b
Prendergast, Alan (July 12, 1995).
"End of the Line"
.
Denver News
. p. 2.
Archived
from the original on November 18, 2010
. Retrieved
October 28,
2009
.
- ^
Nicas, Jack (November 12, 2009).
"UMass forum stirs painful memories for courthouse bomb victim"
.
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.
Archived
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. Retrieved
January 20,
2010
.
- ^
a
b
AP (November 30, 1989).
"Judge Declares Mistrial for 3 in Sedition Case"
.
The New York Times
.
Archived
from the original on September 20, 2011
. Retrieved
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2009
.
- ^
AP (November 30, 1989).
"Jury deadlocks in trial of radicals"
.
Wilmington Daily Star
. Retrieved
October 28,
2009
.
[
dead link
]
- ^
Gus 433
- ^
"In Memoriam ? 1980's ? Trooper II Philip J. Lamonaco"
. State of New Jersey.
Archived
from the original on May 25, 2023.
- ^
"United States v. Levasseur, 619 F. Supp. 775 (E.D.N.Y. 1985)"
.
Justia Law
.
Archived
from the original on December 4, 2020
. Retrieved
February 15,
2022
.
- ^
Paul Basken (1986).
"Manning testified, claims self-defense"
. United Press International.
Archived
from the original on February 15, 2022
. Retrieved
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2022
.
- ^
a
b
Matt Gray (August 1, 2019).
"Domestic terrorist convicted in murder of N.J. State Trooper Philip Lamonaco dies in prison"
.
www.nj.com
.
Archived
from the original on September 2, 2021
. Retrieved
September 4,
2021
.
- ^
a
b
AP (January 12, 1989).
"After 9 Months of Delays, U.S. Tries 3 for Sedition"
.
The New York Times
. Archived from
the original
on September 20, 2011
. Retrieved
October 28,
2009
.
- ^
Churchill, Ward; Jim Vander wall (2002).
The Cointelpro Papers : Documents from the FBI's Secret Wars Against Dissent in the United States
. Cambridge, Mass.:
South End Press
. p. 316.
ISBN
978-0-89608-648-7
.
Archived
from the original on February 15, 2022
. Retrieved
December 5,
2020
.
- ^
a
b
Smith 112
- ^
425
- ^
United States of America, Plaintiff v. Raymond Luc LEVASSEUR, Jaan Karl Laaman, Thomas William Manning, Richard Charles Williams, Carol Ann Manning, Patricia Gros and Barbara Curzi, Defendants
,
620 F.Supp. 624
(United States District Court, E.D. New York 1985).
- ^
Smith 112-13
- ^
a
b
c
Smith 113
- ^
United States of America v. Ramond Levasseur, Carol Ann Manning, Thomas William Manning, Barbara Curzi-Laaman, Richard Charles Williams, Jaan Karl Laaman
,
816 F.2d 37
(United States Court of Appeals, Second Circuit 1987).
- ^
Thomas W. Manning.
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.
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. Archived from
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on October 27, 2009.
- ^
a
b
Berger, Dan (December 14, 2005).
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.
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.
Archived
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. Retrieved
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.
- ^
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The Politics of Terrorism
. CRC Press. p. 315.
ISBN
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.
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. Retrieved
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.
- ^
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Murdered in Jersey
. New Brunswick, N.J.:
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. p. 170.
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.
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. Retrieved
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.
- ^
Langum, David J. (September 1999).
William M. Kunstler: the most hated lawyer in America
.
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. p. 261.
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.
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. Retrieved
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.
- ^
Berger, Dan (2008).
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. In Matt Meyer (ed.).
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. PM Press. p. 32.
ISBN
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.
Archived
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.
- ^
Acoli, Sundiata (2003).
"An Updated History of the New Afrikan Prison Struggle"
. In Joy James (ed.).
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. Rowman & Littlefield. p. 153.
ISBN
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.
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.
- ^
"RICO and Stop Cop City: The Long War Against the Left"
. September 11, 2023.
- ^
Lowry, Dick (October 1, 1995),
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(Crime, Thriller, Drama), Patchett Kaufman Entertainment, World International Network (WIN),
archived
from the original on November 12, 2020
, retrieved
February 15,
2022
Further reference
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edit
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External links
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