Biography
Richard Williams was associated with the United Freedom Front and the broader U.S. radical underground of the late 1970s–1980s, a milieu in which some activists crossed from above-ground organizing into clandestine activity, including sabotage bombings and armed robberies. Williams was among the fugitives pursued in connection with that underground network.
He is most closely known for his role in a deadly encounter with law enforcement: New Jersey State Trooper Philip Lamonaco was killed during a 1981 traffic stop. Williams and fellow United Freedom Front member Thomas Manning were later convicted for the trooper’s murder and received life sentences. Williams was captured with other fugitives in 1984.
Breakthrough’s Winter 1990 account dates the Springfield seditious-conspiracy acquittal of Raymond Luc Levasseur, Richard Williams and Patricia Gros Levasseur to November 30, 1989. Its collective report says the jury failed to reach a verdict on RICO charges, a mistrial was declared, and the government announced five days later that it would not seek another RICO trial. The report’s broad treatment of the RICO counts is preserved as an attributed contemporary account, without replacing more detailed count-by-count outcomes already recorded. The acquittal is not treated as release from other sentences, and no custody endpoint or numeric total changes.
The firstOctober1988 Can’t Jail the Spirit edition supplies this earlier episode. Williams’s first-person biography explicitly reports a marijuana arrest and actual entry to jail in1967 rather than Army enlistment. Only1967 YEAR is recorded, with January1 as storage placeholder. Six months was the offered jail alternative; no completed180-day total, exact first day or actual discharge is inferred. This is separate from his1971 robbery imprisonment and1984 prosecution.
The firstOctober1988 Can’t Jail the Spirit edition supplies this earlier episode. Williams’s first-person biography dates his robbery arrest to1971 and explicitly places his prison-organizing activities inside custody during that year. Arrest and actual admission are therefore limited to1971 YEAR; the source does not establish exact days. It describes subsequent actual release without a year, which stays blank. The seven-to-fifteen-year sentence and expected five years are not completed service. This is not his distinct1967 jail or1984 prosecution.
Libertad’s July 1986 report places Richard Williams in isolation at Trenton State Prison while awaiting the New Jersey trial. It describes separate confinement from other prisoners and restrictive visiting procedures.
The Ohio Five’s March 25, 1985 statement reports placement in disciplinary cells upon arrival at New York’s Metropolitan Correctional Center on March 20.
