Biography
Otto Popovich was an organizer of the Jamaica Unemployed Council, a Communist candidate for the New York State Assembly, and a Navy veteran who had served three years before receiving an honorable discharge. He was arrested on July 3, 1934, while distributing Free Thaelmann leaflets at Sutphin Boulevard and Jamaica Avenue in Queens. Convicted of disorderly conduct and violating a handbill ordinance, he was sentenced to six months and ten days of hard labor and a $60 fine. He was released from Welfare Island on $1,000 bail on September 10, 1934, while appealing the conviction.
The continuation gives the six-month-and-ten-day sentence and $60 fine for Free Thaelmann leaflets, the disorderly-conduct and handbill counts, and Judge Arthur J. Hoffman’s explicit political questioning. It reports actual release on a writ of reasonable doubt while appeal continued. It corroborates the existing bail stage, without a new individual discharge date or completed sentence service.
