Biography
Osip Orloff, also recorded as Joseph or Joe Orloff, was a coal miner jailed after a July 25, 1932 confrontation during the strike at the New England Fuel and Transportation Company in West Virginia. He and fellow miner Sam Opeck were accused of killing a mine guard and held in the Monongalia County jail at Morgantown. In a letter from jail, Orloff described working eighteen-hour days and criticized the United Mine Workers leadership for abandoning the defendants. The International Labor Defense took up their defense. Opeck was acquitted, while Orloff was convicted of involuntary manslaughter.
In his letter printed in the Daily Worker of November 15, 1932, Joseph (Joe) Orloff says the International Labor Defense investigated his and Sam Opeck's case and obtained a postponement of trial to November 21, 1932. He says UMW lawyer Eugene Long then refused assistance because the ILD had become involved. These are the jailed miner's attributed statements, not independent court findings or a new custody episode.
The November 8, 1932 Pittsburgh report published November 9 publicizes a November 10 meeting demanding the release of the two miners and says their murder trial was scheduled for November 21. Orloff’s unnamed wife was to speak. The shared mining case identifies the established Sam Opeck and Osip/Joseph Orloff records; a proposed meeting and trial are not actual release, a verdict or an intake date. Source: https://www.marxists.org/history/usa/pubs/dailyworker/1932/v09-n268-NY-nov-09-1932-DW-LOC.pdf#page=2
The November 21 report identifies the National Miners Union defendants as held in Washington, Pennsylvania prison awaiting the murder trial announced that day in Pittsburgh. The threatened death penalty is not a sentence already imposed. No new detention episode or complete duration is inferred. Daily Worker, November 21, 1932, original PDF page 2. Source: https://www.marxists.org/history/usa/pubs/dailyworker/1932/v09-n278-NY-nov-21-1932-DW-LOC.pdf#page=2
In his letter printed in the Daily Worker of November 15, 1932, Joseph (Joe) Orloff says the International Labor Defense investigated his and Sam Opeck's case and obtained a postponement of trial to November 21, 1932. He says UMW lawyer Eugene Long then refused assistance because the ILD had become involved. These are the jailed miner's attributed statements, not independent court findings or a new custody episode.
In his letter from the county jail at Morgantown printed in the November 1932 Labor Defender, Osip Orloff identified himself as a Russian citizen from Gantsevichi, Slutsk district, Minsk. He described having a wife and two young children, and asked readers to send Russian or Polish correspondence through Mrs. K. Orloff at Farmington, West Virginia. He alleged that guards attacked him and his fellow miner and that police planted a knife. These are his attributed statements, not independent criminal findings or an inferred birthplace. His earlier announcement of an October trial does not override the later November 21 postponement already recorded.
The November28 Morgantown report identifies Joseph Orloff as convicted of involuntary manslaughter, with sentencing expected in two weeks. The scheduled sentencing is not treated as already completed or used to invent an exact sentence day; the later documented six-month term remains distinct from this intermediate report.
