Biography
Colette Pean was one of the New York 8+, a group of Black activists arrested in coordinated FBI and New York City police raids on October 17, 1984. The defendants were held without bail under the recently enacted Bail Reform Act before seven secured release; the exact date of Pean’s initial release has not been located. After the major conspiracy case collapsed, Pean refused to provide a handwriting sample and was confined for civil contempt at the Metropolitan Correctional Center from October 29 to November 18, 1985. A one-day bench trial then convicted her on five false-statement and firearms counts. On January 16, 1986 she received a separate 90-day jail sentence, but the exact dates she entered and left custody for that sentence have not been found.
Biographical sources
The Second Circuit identified Colette Pean as Jean Ford's wife and one of eight defendants indicted on October 29, 1984 in United States v. Chimurenga et al., 84 Cr. 818. The indictment date is distinct from the October 17 arrests.
Distinct January contempt remand
The June 1985 defense publication names Pean among the October 17, 1984 arrestees held without bail. It also reports January 29, 1985 remand of the seven defendants other than Coltrane Chimurenga for refusing physical samples. This is a distinct civil-contempt episode, not Pean's October 29-November 18, 1985 stay or later criminal sentence. Exact initial bail release and January contempt release remain unresolved. The article conflicts internally between a late-November bail narrative and a nearly two-and-a-half-month collective detention statement; neither is converted into an exact individual endpoint.
Source: Death to the Klan, June 1985, PDF pages 9 and 8 (printed pages 8-9). Complete relevant pages visually checked, including the named group and remand paragraph. Existing identified photograph retained.
The Militant’s November 29, 1985 report identifies Robert Carter as the judge in Pean’s November 18 one-day bench trial.
