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United Freedom Front

"Ohio 7" redirects here. For the state highway, see Ohio State Route 7. For the Congressional district, see Ohio's 7th congressional district.

The United Freedom Front (UFF) was a small American revolutionary 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 associated with "South African Apartheid, imperialism, and corporate greed."[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.

United Freedom Front
LeadersRaymond Luc Levasseur, Tom Manning
Dates of operationOctober 1975–1984
Group(s)Ohio 7
Active regionsOhio and the Northeast of the United States
IdeologyAnti-authoritarian socialism
Anticapitalism
Marxism–Leninism
Size~10 militants
OpponentsGovernment of the United States, Apartheid South Africa and associated corporations

Activities

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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 later that year.[4][5] The initial members were Raymond Luc Levasseur and Tom Manning, and their respective spouses, Pat Gros and Carole Manning.[4] Levasseur and Tom Manning were both Vietnam War veterans, first active in Veterans Against the War, and both spent time in prison. The four had worked together in civil rights and 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, in retaliation for the company's 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 through its bank robberies.[3] From 1974 to 1983, the UFF 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, the group was 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, Barbara Curzi, 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, alleged to have shot him eight times with a 9mm automatic pistol.[16] Manning claimed he was alone in the car at the time of the shooting while the prosecution claimed Williams was present at the scene and was the shooter of Lamonaco.[17][18]

The investigation of the group intensified after the killing of the police officer, leading a federal task force to be formed in 1983. Toure was captured in North Attleboro, Massachusetts in 1982, with two state troopers wounded in the course of the arrest.[19][20] On November 4, 1984, police apprehended Levasseur and Gros near Deerfield, Ohio, and Laaman, Curzi, and Williams in Cleveland.[21] Tom and Carole Manning 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

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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. The trial of the remaining three ended in 1989 with an acquittal for sedition for all three and an acquittal for Patricia Levasseur (formerly Gros and now Rowbottom) for RICO Conspiracy and a deadlocked 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 Carole Manning were released during the 1990s,[32][33] and Levasseur was released on parole 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]

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  • USA v. Patricia Gros: 84-CR-0222
  • USA v. Raymond Luc Levasseur et al.: 86-CR-180
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  • 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

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  1. ^ 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.
  2. ^ a b c Phillip Jenkins. "Case-Study of US Domestic Terrorism: United Freedom Front". Archived from the original on August 5, 2012.
  3. ^ 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.
  4. ^ a b c d Smith 110
  5. ^ 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.
  6. ^ Smith 110, 112
  7. ^ "Incident Summary for GTDID: 198403190012". www.start.umd.edu. Archived from the original on January 23, 2022. Retrieved February 15, 2022.
  8. ^ Smith 111
  9. ^ Ronald Kessler (November 9, 1983). "Group Hit Other Targets, FBI Believes" (PDF). Washington Post. Archived (PDF) from the original on May 25, 2023.
  10. ^ 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.
  11. ^ Nicas, Jack (November 12, 2009). "UMass forum stirs painful memories for courthouse bomb victim". Boston Globe. Archived from the original on January 11, 2010. Retrieved January 20, 2010.
  12. ^ 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 October 28, 2009.
  13. ^ AP (November 30, 1989). "Jury deadlocks in trial of radicals". Wilmington Daily Star. Retrieved October 28, 2009. [dead link]
  14. ^ Gus 433
  15. ^ "In Memoriam – 1980's – Trooper II Philip J. Lamonaco". State of New Jersey. Archived from the original on May 25, 2023.
  16. ^ "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.
  17. ^ Paul Basken (1986). "Manning testified, claims self-defense". United Press International. Archived from the original on February 15, 2022. Retrieved February 15, 2022.
  18. ^ 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.
  19. ^ 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.
  20. ^ 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.
  21. ^ a b Smith 112
  22. ^ 425
  23. ^ 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).
  24. ^ Smith 112-13
  25. ^ a b c Smith 113
  26. ^ 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).
  27. ^ Manning, Thomas W. "Tom Manning Short Biography". www.geocities.com. Archived from the original on October 27, 2009.
  28. ^ a b Berger, Dan (December 14, 2005). "Two Prisoners Named Williams". The Nation. Archived from the original on July 13, 2015. Retrieved July 13, 2015.
  29. ^ Stohl, Michael (1988). The Politics of Terrorism. CRC Press. p. 315. ISBN 978-0-8247-7814-9. Archived from the original on September 2, 2021. Retrieved December 5, 2020.
  30. ^ Tomlinson, Gerard (1994). Murdered in Jersey. New Brunswick, N.J.: Rutgers University Press. p. 170. ISBN 978-0-8135-2078-0. Archived from the original on September 2, 2021. Retrieved December 5, 2020.
  31. ^ Langum, David J. (September 1999). William M. Kunstler: The Most Hated Lawyer in America. NYU Press. p. 261. ISBN 978-0-8147-5150-3. Archived from the original on September 2, 2021. Retrieved December 5, 2020.
  32. ^ Berger, Dan (2008). "The Real Dragons: a Brief History of Political Militancy and Incarceration: 1960s to 2000s". In Matt Meyer (ed.). Let Freedom Ring: A Collection of Documents from the Movements to Free U.S. Political Prisoners. PM Press. p. 32. ISBN 978-1-60486-035-1. Archived from the original on September 2, 2021. Retrieved December 5, 2020.
  33. ^ Acoli, Sundiata (2003). "An Updated History of the New Afrikan Prison Struggle". In Joy James (ed.). Imprisoned Intellectuals: America's Political Prisoners Write on Life, Liberation, and Rebellion. Rowman & Littlefield. p. 153. ISBN 978-0-7425-2027-1. Archived from the original on September 2, 2021. Retrieved December 5, 2020.
  34. ^ "RICO and Stop Cop City: The Long War Against the Left". September 11, 2023.
  35. ^ Lowry, Dick (October 1, 1995), In the Line of Duty: Hunt for Justice (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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