Biography
Bill Dunne is an anarchist political prisoner who has been incarcerated since 1979, when he was sentenced to 90 years for the attempted armed liberation of a comrade from the King County Jail in Seattle. A 1983 escape attempt from USP Lewisburg added 15 years. Repeatedly denied parole — most recently told he will not be reconsidered until 2029 — and denied clemency, he was diagnosed with cancer in 2024.
The 2021 prisoner list reports that Dunne spent seven and a half years in lockdown at Marion after an escape attempt. It describes his political and academic education work with other prisoners, writing and editing for 4Struggle Magazine, and organizing Running Down the Walls solidarity runs. The lockdown period is part of his ongoing imprisonment and is not added again to the overall custody total. Its prospective December 2047 release date is not actual release evidence. Its account identifies the original charged conduct as possession of an automatic weapon, auto theft and aiding and abetting a prisoner escape; this is recorded as the support biography’s charge description without assigning a separate conviction date.
The 2017 Anarchist Black Cross guide reports that Dunne was refused parole in winter 2014 and given a fifteen-year interval before reconsideration. This is a historical parole decision, not an additional sentence or a new custody period.
In his 1993 reflection, Dunne dated his confinement at Marion from February 1985 through March 1992. This was part of his existing imprisonment, not additional consecutive custody.
The August birthday notice identifies Dunne at FCI Victorville, public number 10916-086, gives August 3 as his birthday, and lists a projected 2043 release year. A future projection in a 2018 support notice is not evidence of actual release or a complete sentence served.
The Dragons Fire, National Jericho Movement Newsletter, vol. 6, July–August 2018, PDF page 15.
His signed August 9, 2019 tribute recalls a twelve-and-a-half-hour Oklahoma City-to-Leavenworth prison bus transfer with Tom Manning. The October account dates his original arrest October 14, 1979, state-to-federal transfer to Lewisburg in 1982, a 1983 escape attempt and subsequent Marion control-unit confinement. The issue variously summarizes eighty or ninety years plus fifteen; these are nominal accounts, not additive actual days. The projected 2043 release is not recorded as an actual endpoint.
The medical update reports Dunne at Butner for prostate-cancer treatment, with reduced cancer cells and chemotherapy still to begin. This is an actual treatment location within the existing imprisonment, with no exact transfer date or release established.
The Dragons Fire, March 15–April 15, 2024, vol. 72, PDF page 11.
