Biography
Dora García-López was a Puerto Rican community organizer born July 10, 1950 in Arecibo, Puerto Rico. She worked as a counselor at Cathedral Shelter in Chicago and belonged to the Chicago Coalition for the Homeless and the National Committee to Free Puerto Rican Prisoners of War. A federal grand jury indicted her in July 1987 in the alleged Leavenworth escape conspiracy. After a ten-week trial, a jury convicted her of conspiracy and two Travel Act counts. She received three years in federal prison followed by five years of probation. She was initially detained July 3-7, 1986, then remained on bail before entering Alderson on April 5, 1988. Federal records give her release as April 18, 1990. These two documented custody intervals total 747 elapsed days, excluding time on bail.
Separately documented detention and sentenced custody
Libertad, August 1986, pages 3-4, documents detention at Chicago MCC July 3-7, 1986, followed by bail. The March 1988 issue, page 1, reports the February 26 sentencing hearing, her three-year term plus five years probation, and continued bond pending an April 5 surrender.
A Farewell to a Patriot, dated June 11, 1988, page 3 (archive filename May1988), describes friends leaving Chicago Monday April 4, arriving Tuesday morning, and witnessing her surrender at Alderson that day: April 5, 1988. It also identifies her register number as 94735-024. The Bureau of Prisons inmate locator, queried using that exact number, returns Dora Garcia-Lopez and an actual federal release date of April 18, 1990.
The counter sums July 3-7, 1986 (4 elapsed days), and April 5, 1988-April 18, 1990 (743 elapsed days): 747 days. It excludes the intervening bail period and is a total for these documented case intervals, not a claim about lifetime custody. The original incarceration field remains the initial July 3, 1986 detention date; the later admission is recorded in the separate custody periods.
The Winter 1990 Write Through the Walls directory clearly prints historical prisoner identifier 94735-024. This unstamped entry supplies the identifier obscured by the later Fall 1990 FREE stamp. It fills the blank number field; a dated mailing observation does not establish a new admission, physical release date or completed custody duration.
The November 1986 newsletter reported that the initial charges against García-López and Viola Salgado had been dropped. This historical disposition preceded García-López’s separately documented July 1987 indictment.
