Biography
Steve Mendola was one of the three progressive Pittston, Pennsylvania anthracite miners framed with Sam Bonita for the killing of Frank Agati, a gunman for district president Rinaldo Cappellini, during the 1927-28 anthracite union civil war — though, the defense insisted, he never fired a gun. He was held in the Wilkes-Barre county jail and prosecuted in the case the ILD's Labor Defender fought through 1928.
In the April 1930 Labor Defender, page 78, Mendola acknowledged a $5 International Labor Defense check but asked the organization to skip him and aid people more in need because he could get along. The adjacent letter by his daughter Mary Mendola likewise declined further family payments unless needed. These statements document the family's relationship with prisoner relief; neither establishes that Mendola had been released.
The September 8, 1930 Laisve, page 5, reproduces an International Labor Defense political-prisoner directory. Its row prints Steve Mendola, a term of 4–8 years, the year 1928 in the sentencing-year column, and confinement or correspondence location Box B1009, R.F.D., Bellefonte, Pennsylvania. This is an attributed historical directory entry; printed years and nominal terms are not exact intake dates or measured time served, and mailing boxes do not independently identify a prison. The directory contains stale or conflicting chronology, so this row does not override independently established conviction, death or release facts. Source: https://www.spauda2.org/laisve/archive/1930/1930-09-08-LAISVE.pdf#page=5
1920s arrest review: The appellate opinion places the shooting on February16 and describes his arrest soon afterward. It confirms a voluntary-manslaughter conviction. The November26 appellate decision is not a sentencing or release date.
Sources: Daily Worker, February20,1928, page2 (February19dispatch); Commonwealth v. Mendola,294Pa.353,144A.292 (1928). Existing portraits retained; missing release dates are not calculated from sentences.
The Behind the Bars directory on printed page 4 lists this prisoner under Bellefonte, Pennsylvania, with four to eight years, 1928. This is an attributed historical directory entry: the year and nominal term do not establish an intake day, uninterrupted imprisonment, completed service or physical release.
The July15 WilkesBarre report says JudgeMcLean refused a new trial for Mendola in the anthracite union prosecution. The source attributes the prosecution to the Cappellini machine’s response to opposition to the contractor system. It does not give Mendola’s individual sentence length or a physical discharge.
