Biography
Joseph Bellene was one of the 1926 Passaic, New Jersey textile strikers prosecuted in the "bomb plot" frame-up that followed the great strike of 15,000 mill workers — charges the defense showed rested on firecrackers and paid testimony, brought as the mills' answer to the year-long strike. Convicted in early 1927 and sentenced to three years, he was held in the New Jersey State Prison at Trenton and the Bergen County jail. The ILD's Labor Defender carried the defendants' cases and their families' relief through 1927.
The January 28, 1927 Paterson dispatch names this member of the September 1926 eleven-person arrest cohort among five textile strikers sentenced that afternoon by Special Sessions Judge Delaney to three years. The report describes the handcuffed men being led away. That is an imposed term; later parole evidence remains separate from this sentencing account. Source: https://www.marxists.org/history/usa/pubs/dailyworker/1927/1927-ny/v04-n014-NY-jan-29-1927-DW-LOC.pdf#page=3
The May 1927 Labor Defender places the five January-sentenced defendants in Passaic County jail before trial at Paterson and reports transfer to the New Jersey state prison at Trenton less than a week after their three-year sentences. This is distinct from the Bergen County jail group at Hackensack. The imposed three years are not three completed years served. The existing later parole reporting is retained, without inventing a precise transfer day or full continuous custody total. Source: https://www.marxists.org/history/usa/pubs/labordefender/1927/v02n05-may-1927-LD.pdf#page=5
1920s custody review: The contemporary report names this defendant in the eleven-person Passaic bomb-prosecution group arrested in September 1926. Arrest is recorded at month precision, not as an exact September 1 date. The exact prison-admission date is not established by this report. A later report documents parole by May 10, 1928; release year is corrected from 1930 to 1928. The dispatch day is only an upper bound, not an exact release day. The reported sixteen months is not converted into an exact day total. Sources: Daily Worker, page 3, January 28, 1927 dateline (scan catalogued January 29); Daily Worker, May 11, 1928, page 5.