Biography
Tomás López de Victoria was a Puerto Rican Nationalist organizer born in Juana Díaz in 1911 and raised in Ponce. As captain of the Ponce Cadets of the Republic, he led the march that police attacked on March 21, 1937. He was arrested and prosecuted after the massacre, then acquitted. A separate prosecution following the 1938 attempt on Governor Blanton Winship resulted in a life sentence. Governor Rexford Guy Tugwell pardoned him in January 1946. López de Victoria later became commander of the Nationalist military organization and was imprisoned again after the 1950 uprising.
The September 21, 1937 New Masses editorial individually lists this defendant among ten Nationalists then facing the Ponce murder trial and reports that the group had been imprisoned for six months in La Princesa under collective bail totaling $250,000. This is a contemporary approximate custody-to-date report, not a completed six-month sentence, exact admission date, individual bail amount or final conviction. Its description of a hand-picked jury and government campaign is the editorial’s allegation. The existing prosecution is retained without a duplicate case. Source: https://www.marxists.org/history/usa/pubs/new-masses/1937/v24n13-sep-21-1937-NM.pdf#page=18
The April 12, 1939 manifesto individually names him among Nationalists imprisoned in Puerto Rico following the July25,1938 events and reports a nominal ninety-nine-year term. This is an attributed contemporary sentence report, distinct from actual service and from the separate 1937 Ponce-massacre prosecutions. Other sources describe life imprisonment; that terminology difference is retained without replacing established later pardon/release details.