Biography
Mary Trotochaud was sentenced to 14 months in federal prison for SOA Watch sign-alteration on September 29, 1997 and repeat trespass at the U.S. Army School of the Americas at Fort Benning, Georgia on November 16, 1997 — among the longest SOA Watch sentences imposed in the late 1990s. She entered federal prison on September 28, 1998.
Birth-year source
- SOA Watch prisoners-of-conscience chronology — identifies Mary Trotochaud as 47 during the September and November 1997 Fort Benning actions, supporting 1950 as her birth year.
The Pardon Attorney’s April 15, 1998 letter says Bichsel, Eilerman, Kinane and Trotochaud had not yet begun the November 1997 protest sentences while awaiting sentencing in another case. It is therefore unsafe to copy the other defendants’ common March 23 intake date onto these four. Mike Lowry’s October 21 letter distinguishes the September 1997 sign-alteration prosecution and reports that their six-month line-crossing terms were ordered consecutive to the sign-case terms. A clemency request is not a grant, and nominal consecutive sentences are not proof of an equivalent amount of actual service.
