Biography
John Perotti was a militant jailhouse organizer and member of the Industrial Workers of the World (IWW) who spent much of his life in the Ohio prison system, largely at the Southern Ohio Correctional Facility (Lucasville). A relentless prisoners'-rights activist and jailhouse lawyer, he was repeatedly beaten and thrown into isolation in retaliation for organizing against prison conditions and guard brutality, and filed numerous brutality lawsuits; in one incident he stabbed a guard who attacked him. The prisoner-support movement regarded him as a political prisoner for the retaliation he endured for his activism, though his original imprisonment was not for a political offense. He kept organizing from behind the walls for decades.
In Perotti v. Beck, decided September 24, 2001, the Ohio Seventh District reviewed Perotti’s legal-malpractice suit over counsel’s efforts to obtain judicial release and a new trial in his prison-assault prosecution. The court left judgment for counsel intact on the judicial-release claim, but remanded the factual question whether counsel had been hired and paid to file an actual new-trial motion supported by an alleged recantation. This was a partial reversal in the civil malpractice case, not a reversal of Perotti’s criminal convictions or an order releasing him. The opinion separately recounts the 1985 guard-assault and 1989 prisoner-assault convictions already represented in his record. Source: https://www.supremecourt.ohio.gov/rod/docs/pdf/7/2001/2001-ohio-3413.pdf#page=2
Identified official photograph and custody chronology
The Ohio correctional record names John William Perotti, A167712, and supplies his identified photograph and April 19, 1982 admission. The photograph is used unaltered; its capture date is unknown and it is not described as a 1980s image. The record's expected parole date is not an actual release; its current death-status label supplies no death date. Official Ohio record.
The 2017 primary court opinion reports the 1982 underlying convictions, 1985 and 1989 prison assault convictions, and April 2003 parole release. These are distinct episodes, not three independent imprisonment totals. Primary custody chronology. The contemporary prisoner-support report identifies the same A167712 and IWW organizing, providing an identity bridge. Its calls for release from isolation do not mean discharge from prison. Contemporary support account, full indexed text read; ordinary web retrieval failed.
