Biography
Jeff Dietrich is a longtime Los Angeles Catholic Worker and editor of the Catholic Agitator. In March 2003 - on the eve of the U.S. invasion of Iraq - he was arrested at the downtown LA federal building and at the Ash Wednesday blockade. Sentenced to 45 days at MDC-Los Angeles.
A separate book review in the March 9, 1983 Nuclear Resister describes Dietrich and fellow Catholic Worker Kent Hoffman as actually serving fifty-nine days following an October 1979 Military Arms Bazaar protest, after their six-month sentences were commuted. This is a separate earlier action from Dietrich’s 1983 Rockwell imprisonment; the action month does not establish later jail endpoints.
Birth-date sources
No-jail disposition in separate ICE-van action
The April 2026 Catholic Agitator’s individual Jeff Dietrich Update states that he received no jail time and no fine for blocking an ICE van at the downtown Los Angeles Metropolitan Detention Center. This is a reported court disposition in the separate immigration-enforcement civil-disobedience action, not the 2003 antiwar imprisonment or the 2024 Vandenberg citation. The newsletter does not print the action, arrest or court-hearing day, an exact statutory charge, a plea, or whether any earlier pretrial detention occurred. No imposed jail sentence is therefore not used as proof of zero total lifetime custody or as a new release date. Existing separately sourced cases and their counters remain unchanged. The adjacent photograph is captioned only as after Jeff’s court appearance; no other group member is identified from appearance.
Catholic Agitator, April2026, volume56no2, printed page3 and spread4-5 (original PDF pages4-5).
An earlier 1983 jail stay distinguished from its six-month sentence
In its discussion of Judge Roosevelt Robinson, the December 16, 1983 report says the judge had released Jeff Dietrich earlier that year after thirty days of a six-month sentence. The underlying case was already more than a year old. This supplies actual completed service for an earlier 1983 episode but no exact arrest, sentence, admission or release day; it is not the existing 2003 case and the nominal six months are not six months actually served.
The Nuclear Resister No22, December 16, 1983, original page 5.
A separate book review in the March 9, 1983 Nuclear Resister describes Dietrich and fellow Catholic Worker Kent Hoffman as actually serving fifty-nine days following an October 1979 Military Arms Bazaar protest, after their six-month sentences were commuted. This is a separate earlier action from Dietrich’s 1983 Rockwell imprisonment; the action month does not establish later jail endpoints.
The Nuclear Resister No.15, March 9, 1983, PDF pages 16.
The January 1983 report distinguishes Dietrich’s same-day December 22 detention and release from his January 7 readmission on the erroneous court warrant.
Dietrich’s April 10, 2026 protest arrest led to a June 17 guilty plea and $60 fine; no jail term was imposed.
