Biography
Filiberto Ojeda Ríos was a Cuban-trained Puerto Rican Communist and the founder and lifelong leader of the Ejército Popular Boricua-Macheteros, the clandestine armed wing of the Puerto Rican independence movement that emerged in the late 1970s. He was the principal organizer of the September 12, 1983 Wells Fargo armored-car expropriation in West Hartford, Connecticut, which netted $7,017,151 — the second-largest cash robbery in U.S. history at the time. He was arrested in the August 30, 1985 mass FBI raid in Puerto Rico (more than 200 agents involved) but jumped bond in 1990 and lived underground in Puerto Rico for the next fifteen years.
On September 23, 2005 — the anniversary of the 1868 Grito de Lares — more than 100 FBI agents surrounded his rural home in Hormigueros, Puerto Rico. He was shot once in the upper torso during the standoff and was left to bleed to death over many hours after the agents withdrew. The Justice Departments later admission that no medical attention was provided after the shot was widely condemned across the Puerto Rican political spectrum, and his death is regarded by the Puerto Rican left as an extrajudicial killing.
The August 27, 1988 Associated Press report says Ojeda Ríos was rearrested the previous Friday while reporting in Hartford, placed in U.S. marshal custody and ordered transported to Puerto Rico on charges concerning the 1985 shooting of an FBI agent. The relative date gives August 26 in this report. Because the existing research records conflicting exact rearrest days, its month-level admission is retained; an order to transport is not proof of completed transport that day. Magistrate F. Owen Eagan rejected release despite the defense and pretrial recommendation. Source: Manchester Herald, August 27, 1988, PDF page 5. https://cdn.manchesterhistory.org/News/Manchester%20Evening%20Hearld_1988-08-27.pdf#page=5
Two prosecutions and separate custody episodes
The initial arrest was August 30, 1985. The November 1988 appellate opinion records actual release on bail in the Connecticut Wells Fargo case on May 20, 1988, after prolonged pretrial detention. This replaces the incorrect August 1989 endpoint and the claim of bail in 1985. No exact day counter is established for the first detention interval. The precise prison admission day is not established.
The separate Puerto Rico assault/firearms prosecution led to another detention in August 1988. The opinion dates indictment August 14 and arrest two days later; contemporary September reporting instead gives August 26. The conflicting day is not entered as a settled arrest date. The FBI's original 1989 report, printed page 17, records acquittal on all eight counts in August 1989 and release on bond. The existing case field records August 28 as release, while the prior source note used August 26; the actual discharge-day discrepancy remains under review and neither day is used to calculate an exact duration. No prison sentence resulted in that case.
The Justice Department Inspector General distinguishes this acquittal from the Connecticut conviction and 55-year sentence imposed in absentia in July 1992, with a 600,000-dollar fine. The July date has month precision, not a verified first-of-month day. The unsupported June 30, 1992 incarceration is removed: sentencing a fugitive in absentia does not establish physical admission. Existing photograph retained.
Sources: In re Ojeda Rios, 863 F.2d 202, facts; FBI 1989 report, printed p.17 (original page inspected); DOJ OIG, August 2006, chapter 2; September 23, 1988 contemporary re-arrest reporting (indexed text). Exact prison admissions and the conflicting re-arrest day remain unresolved.
Verified detention-start months, not exact booking days
The November 1988 appellate factual account describes the August 1985 arrest followed by detention without bail, actual bail release on May 20, 1988, and renewed detention after the separate August 1988 arrest. The 1986 appellate account also describes the initial presentment and detention proceedings. These establish August 1985 and August 1988 as detention-start months, not independently documented jail-booking days. Both starts are stored at MONTH precision: August 1 is a placeholder, not an actual admission day. The May–August 1988 bail gap is not counted as imprisonment. The disputed August 1989 discharge day and the July 1992 in-absentia sentence are unchanged; no exact custody total is inferred.
The Spring/Summer 1986 Write Through the Walls directory individually lists Filiberto Ojeda Ríos under historical prisoner number 03167-069, with correspondence directed to MCC, 150 Park Row, New York. The original name, individual number and political-prisoner group context match this existing profile. This is dated historical correspondence information, not a present mailing instruction or an independently established admission, transfer, release or completed custody duration.
