Biography
Anthony J. Stopa was an antiwar defendant from Detroit, Michigan, convicted under the Espionage Act. His Leavenworth intake record lists arrest in April 1918, sentencing on August 7, 1918, and admission to the penitentiary on September 10, 1918. The original twenty-year sentence was commuted to five years in May 1919. Kohn records the end of his imprisonment in December 1921; the prison sheet bears a December 25, 1921 commutation stamp, which is not treated as proof of the precise physical-release day.
1920s custody-date review: The original Leavenworth records for prisoner 13201 distinguish August 7, 1918 sentencing from September 10, 1918 penitentiary admission, and give only April 1918 for arrest. Kohn records release in December 1921. The December 25 commutation stamp does not independently establish physical release that day, so the release retains month precision. The previously duplicated April 17, 1923 death/release endpoint and its calculated custody total are removed from this case. The separate biographical death date remains unverified and is not evidence of death in this custody episode.
Sources: National Archives, Stopa intake record; National Archives, Stopa prison record; Kohn, American Political Prisoners, page 134, note 409.
