Biography
Steven Guerra was a Puerto Rican independence activist identified by prosecutors as a leader of FALN support work in the United States. In 1983 he was one of several people convicted of criminal contempt for refusing to testify before a federal grand jury investigating the FALN. He was sentenced to three years and released in 1986 after serving about 23 months; he was never charged with any of the group's attacks.
Criminal-contempt sentence
The June 7, 1983 sentencing date is confirmed by the federal court. This was criminal, not civil, contempt. His existing April 30, 1986 release is corroborated by the contemporary release report.
Sources: Guerra v. Meese, note 8; Libertad, June 1986, page 8.
A March 4, 1983 contemporary report identified Charles Sifton as the judge in the Brooklyn federal criminal-contempt trial in which the five grand jury resisters were convicted on February 16, 1983.
The John Brown Anti-Klan Committee’s November 1984 account names Steven Guerra among five grand-jury resisters arrested in 1982 and reports that their separate criminal-contempt prison terms began in April 1984. The arrest and the later sentence service are different events. Its prison directory identifies the institution where each resister was then held. The directory prints his historical federal prisoner identifier as 15883-053; the differing older identifier remains a separate reconciliation issue.
Stop the Grand Jury!, John Brown Anti-Klan Committee, November 1984, PDF page 15; Stop the Grand Jury!, John Brown Anti-Klan Committee, November 1984, PDF page 16.
Libertad names this imprisoned resister in a May 10, 1985 habeas challenge to parole treatment.
