Samuel Brown
Biography
Samuel Brown, who took the New Afrikan name Sekou Abdullah Mtetezi in prison, was a Black Liberation Army member arrested in connection with the October 20, 1981 Brink s armored-car expropriation in Nyack, New York. He was apprehended in late 1981, convicted on June 14, 1984 in Rockland County, New York state court of murder and armed robbery, and on June 26, 1984 sentenced to three consecutive prison terms of 25 years to life. He has been held in the New York state prison system for more than four decades. The Jericho Movement lists him among its current political prisoners.
1984 sentencing date confirmed
The original New York state report on the Brink case dates sentencing of Samuel (Sam) Brown in Westchester County to June 26, 1984, following the June 14 verdict. This fills the blank sentencing field; it does not replace his earlier arrest or incarceration date. The report identifies the term as seventy-five years to life, rather than a determinate seventy-five-year term.
No source in this pass establishes a final release. The 2017 Judith Clark parole-hearing transcript explicitly says Brown was then still incarcerated; that historical statement is not a current-status verification. The current Jericho prisoner index does not list Samuel Brown and its Brown entry is Grailing Brown (Kojo Bomani Sababu), a different person. No image or alias was transferred between them. The existing Sekou Abdullah Mtetezi alias was not independently corroborated here and remains a research question. No guessed photograph or release has been added.
Sources: New York state Brink case report, PDF page 45 and chronology page 66; New York parole-hearing transcript for Judith Clark, 2017, page 119; Jericho prisoner index checked during this pass.
The April 13, 1984 Militant identifies Judge David Ritter in the joint Brink trial and Robert Isseks as Samuel Brown’s court-appointed attorney. It reports Isseks’s allegation that Brown’s neck had been broken after beatings at Rockland County Jail and that he feared further attacks. Ritter ordered a psychological evaluation and agreed to a transfer to a Westchester County jail inpatient psychiatric unit during examination. The order does not independently establish that the transfer occurred.
The 1981 prisoner-address roster individually lists Samuel Brown under historical federal register 03835-054 at FCI Otisville. This is a historical identifier from that episode, not a present mailing address or claim of current federal custody. Existing later state identifiers and current status are not replaced.
The bulletin individually names this defendant among four captured after the October 20, 1981 Nyack Brinks action and prints the committee’s solidarity declaration. The editorial presents the arrests as repression of the revolutionary movement. This is contemporary capture and defense context, without a new prosecution row, imposed sentence or completed custody total. The source prints Kathy Coudin in one passage; the known Nyack four and other explicit Boudin spelling resolve that typo.
Tip of the Iceberg, December 1981 (surviving twelve-page scan), PDF page 2.
The state policy report individually confirms arrest on October 20, 1981 and actual pretrial confinement in the Brink’s prosecution. Its security discussion distinguishes Rockland, Orange and Westchester trial arrangements and later prison custody from release. The body gives June 23, 1983 for transfer to Orange County while its chronology gives June 19; no exact transfer day is selected from this internal conflict. Transfers and court appearances are not discharges to freedom. The report dates the June 14, 1984 conviction and June 26 sentence of seventy-five years to life. His movement to Fishkill and federal grand-jury custody did not constitute release.
Report of the New York State Policy Study Group on Terrorism, November 1985, PDF page 41.
