United Freedom Front

aka Ohio Seven, Sam Melville/Jonathan Jackson Unit (SMJJU)

In 1987, the United Freedom Front (UFF), a clandestine, militant anti-imperialist group, faced one of the longest seditious conspiracy trials in U.S. history. While all members were acquitted of the conspiracy charges, most were sent to prison on related charges, including bombing corporate buildings and military installations between 1982 and 1984 and the death of a New Jersey state trooper.

The UFF carried out more than 10 bombings in the New York metropolitan area during the early 1980s. In May 1983, explosions rocked military reserve centers in Nassau County and Queens. These bombings came a few months after the UFF attacked an IBM office in Harrison, New York; the South African embassy office in Elmont, Long Island; and a federal building on Staten Island that housed the FBI and an Army-Navy recruiting office.

By the end of 1983, the group had claimed responsibility for bombing another recruiting office in Long Island, as well as two undetonated bombs housed in attaché cases with “bomb” stenciled on the outside that were found at the Honeywell offices in Long Island City, Queens. The UFF would contact local authorities before the blasts to make sure no one was hurt, then call news organizations to claim the acts and spread various anti-imperialist messages: “U.S. Out of El Salvador,” “Death to Apartheid,” “Viva El Salvador.” The group's actions were often compared to those of another group from the 1960s, Weatherman.

During 1984, the UFF attacked the New York City corporate offices of Motorola, IBM, GE, and Union Carbide, to protest U.S. military and corporate involvement in Central and Latin America, specifically Nicaragua and El Salvador, and to protest apartheid in South Africa. UFF's final act was the September 26, 1984, bombing of the South African consulate on Park Avenue in Manhattan.

Two months later, authorities in Ohio raided the homes of Thomas and Carol Ann Manning, Raymond Luc Levasseur and Patricia Gros, and Jaan Karl Lamaan and Barbara Curzi. Thomas Manning, Levasseur, and Lamaan were arrested on charges related to the death of Philip Lamonaco, a New Jersey state trooper, and a series of bank robberies in New England. Authorities also found copies of UFF communiqués, handwritten descriptions of the GE and IBM buildings bombed by the UFF, and bomb-related devices similar to those found at the Honeywell site.

On March 12, 1985, the Mannings, Levasseur, Gros, Lamaan, Curzi, and a man named Richard Williams—now known as the Ohio 7—were indicted for the UFF bombings. Evidence also linked them to a series of eight bombings in the 1970s in New England, claimed by the Sam Melville/Jonathan Jackson Unit (SMJJU).

The four-and-a-half-month federal trial was held in Brooklyn, New York. All charged, except Gros, who was tried separately, were found guilty on at least two counts. In May 1986, the U.S. attorney's office in Boston, Massachusetts, indicted the Ohio 7, plus a man named Christopher King (aka Kazi Toure), on charges of seditious conspiracy and racketeering. This indictment encompassed the UFF bombings, as well as a number of bank robberies and the SMJJU bombings, which included the bombing of the Suffolk County courthouse in retaliation for the 1976 Soweto (South Africa) massacre. The trial, which lasted more than 10 months, had more than 200 witnesses and presented over 1,700 pieces of evidence; it was one of the longest sedition trials in U.S. history. By November 1989, all defendants had been acquitted of the sedition charges.