Biography
Leo Fortin was an Unemployed Council member in Pontiac, Michigan. George Morris’s contemporary account identifies him with Walter Hardin and Clarence Sherman as victims of a vigilante kidnapping in November 1931. The men were taken to Cass Lake State Park, beaten and forced to drink castor oil. The article reports that Fortin subsequently remained a patient in an asylum and attributes his condition to the flogging; this is the reporter’s account, not an independently established diagnosis or proof of a separate political commitment. It reports dismissal of eleven accused vigilante leaders in 1936. Exact seizure and freedom dates are unreported. Daily Worker, August 8, 1936, page 8. Source: https://www.marxists.org/history/usa/pubs/dailyworker/1936/v13-n190-NY-aug-08-1936-DW-Q.pdf#page=8
The July 23 Pontiac report names Fortin as a victim of the 1931 election-eve kidnappings and beatings and says he was then in an asylum as a consequence. The article does not name the asylum, prove a new coercive commitment or give an intake day, so no additional custody episode or exact endpoint is inferred.
