Biography
Elifaz Escobar was a Puerto Rican Nationalist and lieutenant in the Ponce branch of the Cadets of the Republic. He was arrested and prosecuted following the March 21, 1937 Ponce massacre, when police fired on a Nationalist procession. The charges against him included assault with intent to kill and weapons offenses. He was imprisoned in La Princesa. In a separate prosecution following the attempted assassination of Governor Blanton Winship on July 25, 1938, Escobar was convicted of first-degree murder in the death of Colonel Luis A. Irizarry and sentenced to ninety-nine years. The Supreme Court of Puerto Rico upheld his conviction in July 1939. Governor Rexford G. Tugwell pardoned the imprisoned Nationalists in 1946.
The attorney general’s March 27, 1937 preliminary report on page 16 explicitly states Elifaz Escobar had been arrested and charged with assault with intent to kill after the Ponce events. It supplies an upper-bound confirmation of the existing March 1937 episode, not a second arrest or an exact physical release. The report’s disputed account of who fired first is the administration’s allegation, not a finding adopted here. Source: https://www.congress.gov/75/crecb/1937/06/03/GPO-CRECB-1937-pt5-v81-11.pdf
The September 21, 1937 New Masses editorial individually lists this defendant among ten Nationalists then facing the Ponce murder trial and reports that the group had been imprisoned for six months in La Princesa under collective bail totaling $250,000. This is a contemporary approximate custody-to-date report, not a completed six-month sentence, exact admission date, individual bail amount or final conviction. Its description of a hand-picked jury and government campaign is the editorial’s allegation. The existing prosecution is retained without a duplicate case. Source: https://www.marxists.org/history/usa/pubs/new-masses/1937/v24n13-sep-21-1937-NM.pdf#page=18
The April 12, 1939 manifesto individually names him among Nationalists imprisoned in Puerto Rico following the July25,1938 events and reports a nominal ninety-nine-year term. This is an attributed contemporary sentence report, distinct from actual service and from the separate 1937 Ponce-massacre prosecutions. Other sources describe life imprisonment; that terminology difference is retained without replacing established later pardon/release details.