Biography
Patsy Ciambrelli was a Marine Firemen union member and one of the maritime workers prosecuted in the Modesto dynamite case during the 1935 tanker strike. He was arrested near Patterson on April 20, 1935, and taken to the Modesto county jail. On August 6, a jury convicted him of reckless possession of dynamite while acquitting the defendants of the conspiracy and blackjack charges. He received a term of six months to five years and was imprisoned at Folsom State Prison. The maritime unions challenged the prosecution, alleging that Standard Oil agents had framed the men. He remained in Folsom in September 1938 and was released later that year. By December he was organizing support for Tom Mooney through his union. In July 1939 he was elected a Maritime Federation trustee.
The October 31, 1935 Voice of the Federation individually gives Patsy Ciambrelli’s mailing address as Folsom at Represa, prisoner 19889. Its accompanying instructions explicitly place seven Modesto defendants at San Quentin and Patsy Ciambrelli at Represa. This establishes individual prison allocation rather than assigning a prison from a group reference; no new release or exact transfer day is supplied. Source: https://archive.ilwu.org/wp-content/uploads/2015/04/19351031.pdf#page=3
The August 23, 1935 Voice of the Federation reports Judge Roy B. Maxey’s August 19 denial of the Modesto defendants’ new-trial motion and motion in arrest of judgment. Their request for a probation inquiry was withdrawn; probation was not granted. Sentencing announced for September 3 was still prospective in that issue, and is not used as an exact sentence or admission day. Source: https://archive.ilwu.org/wp-content/uploads/2015/04/19350823.pdf#page=1
Pages 1 and 6 identify the eight Modesto defendants in the sheriff-office trial photograph and describe denial of retrial and appeal bail, continued state imprisonment, repeated cell searches and twenty-minute visits compared with an hour for other prisoners. The Joint Marine Defense Committee alleges that Standard Oil agents Hal Marchant and Scrudder engineered the dynamite prosecution. The report dates the expedition April 21, conflicting with the individually documented April 20 arrest accounts; the existing date is retained. The five-year maximum and collective forty-year rhetoric are imposed punishment, not actual individual service. The collective San Quentin/Folsom wording does not replace the earlier individually identified Represa allocation. Source: https://archive.ilwu.org/wp-content/uploads/2015/04/19351219.pdf
Contemporary source and chronology limits
The June 14, 1935 Voice of the Federation, pages 1 and 3, names the nine Modesto defendants and records a chronology discrepancy: defense counsel Harold C. Faulkner’s June 12 statement dates the original arrest to April 20, while another article on the same front page says April 21. The existing April 20 case date is not overwritten on the strength of that conflicting report. The issue describes May 11 indictment, June 5 reindictment and a June 13 pending challenge, and a trial scheduled for July 3—not a trial proved to have occurred that day. Hal Marchant and James Scrudder’s near-immediate releases are not assigned to the nine jailed defendants. Later individually supported convictions, parole dates and custody fields remain unchanged.
A Sacramento dispatch dated June 2 reports that the Modesto Boys Defense Committee filed an appellate-rehearing petition the previous day, June 1, on behalf of eight individually named defendants following affirmance of their convictions. The roster prints Ruel Stanfield and John Sousa for the corresponding existing Reuel Stanfield and John Souza records. This is a documented petition, not proof that rehearing was granted, a new prosecution, or a release.
Voice of the Federation, December 19, 1935; relevant page stated in the accompanying profile note.
The Society Note identifies Ciambrelli as an MFOWW member recently released from San Quentin in the Modesto case and reports him back in San Francisco after a round-the-world voyage aboard the President Hayes. The April 27, 1939 issue thus documents post-release employment and travel. It supplies no exact prison release day and does not make the voyage part of confinement.
Mooney’s signed greeting explicitly states that Ciambrelli had been released from Folsom, recalls meeting him at San Quentin before transfer to Folsom, and thanks him for organizing a union gift after release. This first-person account supports the Folsom transfer and release by this issue date, but does not supply an exact release day. The April 1939 issue’s brief San Quentin release shorthand should not erase this explicit institutional sequence.
The February2 Sacramento report names this Modesto defendant among the three not yet paroled, after an unfavorable advisory pardon-board recommendation for all seven. It distinguishes ongoing imprisonment from the four co-defendants’ existing paroles. It supplies no new exact discharge or complete duration.
Page2’s prisoner address list places this person at Folsom, prisoner number 19889. This is contemporary location and correspondence evidence, not a new sentence or exact transfer date. Prisoner address list, page2.
The Stanfield release notice says Ciambrelli and Buyle were the two Modesto-associated defendants still to be freed. This confirms ongoing confinement by the October13 issue; it supplies neither a new sentence nor an exact later discharge.
The March 11, 1937 Voice of the Federation reproduces a San Francisco Labor Council resolution stating that a California Assembly committee completed its Modesto investigation hearing on February 27. The resolution attributes the convictions to perjured testimony from James Scrudder, a Standard Oil agent, and asks Governor Frank F. Merriam to pardon Robert J. Fitzgerald, Reuel Stanfield, Victor Johnson, John Souza, Patsy Ciambrelli, Henry Silva and John Burrows. It separately seeks leniency for John Rodger and Alphonse Buyle, alleging entrapment. These are the union resolution’s findings and demands following a legislative investigation, not a judicial reversal, granted pardon or new physical discharge. The newspaper’s description of seven men as cleared does not establish that their convictions were vacated.
Z. R. Brown identifies Patsy Ciambrelli as still in Folsom, says the parole board had shown him no compassion, and predicts that he would apparently serve his full term. This reports contemporary continued custody and a prediction; it supplies no completed term or exact physical release date. His separately documented later release is preserved.
The centennial history’s named photograph identifies him among the eight Modesto defendants. Its April 20, 1935 arrest account describes private guards handing the men to the sheriff and county-jail detention, followed by acquittal on conspiracy and blackjack counts and conviction on dynamite possession. It gives the group’s imposed terms as six months to five years and discusses an appeal challenging a repealed statute. The named identification supports membership in the case, but supplies no new individual release or exact service total. Planted-evidence claims remain attributed to defendants and the union.
