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 transferred from Middlesex General Hospital in New Brunswick to Roosevelt Hospital in Edison after her lawyers obtained a court order from Judge John Bachman, and then transferred to Middlesex County Workhouse a few weeks later. During an interview, <mask> Shakur discussed her treatment by the police and medical staff at Middlesex General Hospital. She said that the police beat and choked her and were "doing everything that they could possibly do as soon as the doctors or nurses would go outside". Criminal charges and dispositions
Between 1973 and 1977, in New York and New Jersey, <mask> was indicted ten times, resulting in seven different criminal trials. Shakur was charged with two bank robberies, the kidnapping of a Brooklyn heroin dealer, the attempted murder of two Queens police officers stemming from a January 23, 1973, failed ambush, and eight other felonies related to the Turnpike shootout.Of these trials, three resulted in acquittals, one in a hung jury, one in a change of venue, one in a mistrial due to pregnancy, and one in a conviction. Three indictments were dismissed without trial. Turnpike shootout change of venue
On the charges related to the New Jersey Turnpike shootout, New Jersey Superior Court Judge Leon Gerofsky ordered a change of venue in 1973 from Middlesex to Morris County, New Jersey, saying "it was almost impossible to obtain a jury here comprising people willing to accept the responsibility of impartiality so that defendants will be protected from transitory passion and prejudice." Polls of residents in Middlesex County, where Acoli had been convicted less than three years earlier, showed that 83% knew Shakur's identity and 70% believed that she was guilty. Bronx bank robbery mistrial
In December 1973, <mask> was tried for a September 29, 1972, $3,700 robbery of the Manufacturer's Hanover Trust Company in the Bronx, along with co-defendant Kamau Sadiki (born Fred Hilton). In light of the pending murder prosecution against Shakur in New Jersey state court, her lawyers requested that the trial be postponed for six months to permit further preparation. Judge Lee P. Gagliardi denied a postponement, and the Second Circuit denied Shakur's petition for mandamus.In protest, the lawyers stayed mute, and <mask> and Sadiki conducted their own defense. Seven other BLA members were indicted by District Attorney Eugene Gold in connection with the series of holdups and shootings on the same day, who—according to Gold—represented the "top echelon" of the BLA as determined by a year-long investigation. The prosecution's case rested largely on the testimony of two men who had pleaded guilty to participating in the holdup. The prosecution called four witnesses: Avon White and John Rivers (both of whom had already pled guilty to the robbery) and the manager and teller of the bank. White and Rivers, although having pled guilty, had not yet been sentenced for the robbery and were promised that the charges would be dropped in exchange for their testimony. White and Rivers testified that Shakur had guarded one of the doors with a .357 magnum pistol and that Sadiki had served as a lookout and drove the getaway truck during the robbery; neither White nor Rivers was cross-examined due to the defense attorney's refusal to participate in the trial. <mask>'s aunt and lawyer, Evelyn Williams, was cited for contempt after walking out of the courtroom after many of her attempted motions were denied.The trial was delayed for a few days after <mask> was diagnosed with pleurisy. During the trial, the defendants were escorted to a "holding pen" outside the courtroom several times after shouting complaints and epithets at Judge Gagliardi. While in the holding pen, they listened to the proceedings over loudspeakers. Both defendants were repeatedly cited for contempt of court and eventually barred from the courtroom, where the trial continued in their absence. A contemporary New York Times editorial criticized Williams for failing to maintain courtroom "decorum," comparing her actions to William Kunstler's recent contempt conviction for his actions during the "Chicago Seven" trial. Sadiki's lawyer, Robert Bloom, attempted to have the trial dismissed and then postponed due to new "revelations" regarding the credibility of White, a former co-defendant by then working for the prosecution. Bloom had been assigned to defend Sadiki/Hilton over the summer, but White was not disclosed as a government witness until right before the trial.Judge Gagliardi instructed both the prosecution and the defense not to bring up <mask> or Sadiki's connections to the BLA, saying they were "not relevant". Gagliardi denied requests by the jurors to pose questions to the witnesses—either directly or through him—and declined to provide the jury with information they requested about how long the defense had been given to prepare, saying it was "none of their concern". This trial resulted in a hung jury and then a mistrial, when the jury reported to Gagliardi that they were hopelessly deadlocked for the fourth time. Bronx bank robbery retrial
The retrial was delayed for one day to give the defendants more time to prepare. The new jury selection was marked by attempts by Williams to be relieved of her duties, owing to disagreements with Shakur as well as with Hilton's attorney. Judge Arnold Bauman denied the application, but directed another lawyer, Howard Jacobs, to defend Shakur while Williams remained the attorney of record. Shakur was ejected following an argument with Williams, and Hilton left with her as jury selection continued.After the selection of twelve jurors (60 were excused), Williams was allowed to retire from the case, with <mask> officially representing herself, assisted by lawyer Florynce Kennedy. In the retrial, White testified that the six alleged robbers had saved their hair clippings to create disguises, and identified a partially obscured head and shoulder in a photo taken from a surveillance camera as Shakur's. Kennedy objected to this identification on the grounds that the prosecutor, assistant United States attorney Peter Truebner, had offered to stipulate that <mask> was not depicted in any of the photographs. Although both White and Rivers testified that Shakur was wearing overalls during the robbery, the person identified as <mask> in the photograph was wearing a jacket. The defense attempted to discredit White on the grounds that he had spent eight months in Matteawan Hospital for the Criminally Insane in 1968, and White countered that he had faked insanity (by claiming to be Allah in front of three psychiatrists) to get transferred out of prison. Shakur personally cross-examined the witnesses, getting White to admit that he had once been in love with her; the same day, one juror (who had been frequently napping during the trial) was replaced with an alternate. During the retrial, the defendants repeatedly left or were thrown out of the courtroom.Both defendants were acquitted in the retrial; six jurors interviewed after the trial stated that they did not believe the two key prosecution witnesses. <mask> was immediately returned to Morristown, New Jersey, under a heavy guard following the trial. Louis Chesimard (<mask>'s ex-husband) and Paul Stewart, the other two alleged robbers, had been acquitted in June. Turnpike shootout mistrial
The Turnpike shootout proceedings continued with Judge John E. Bachman in Middlesex County. New Jersey Superior Court Judge Leon Gerofsky ordered a change of venue in 1973 from Middlesex to Morris County, New Jersey, saying "it was almost impossible to obtain a jury here comprising people willing to accept the responsibility of impartiality so that defendants will be protected from transitory passion and prejudice." Morris County, had a far smaller black population than Middlesex County. On this basis, Shakur unsuccessfully attempted to remove the trial to federal court.Before jury selection was complete, it was discovered that Shakur was pregnant. Due to the possibility of miscarriage, the prosecution successfully requested a mistrial for Shakur; Acoli's trial continued. Attempted murder dismissal
<mask> and four others (including Fred Hilton, Avon White, and Andrew Jackson) were indicted in the State Supreme Court in the Bronx on December 31, 1973, on charges of attempting to shoot and kill two policemen—Michael O'Reilly and Roy Polliana, who were wounded but had since returned to duty—in an ambush in St. Albans, Queens on January 28, 1973. On March 5, 1974, two new defendants (Jeannette Jefferson and Robert Hayes) were named in an indictment involving the same charges. On April 26, while Shakur was pregnant, New Jersey Governor Brendan Byrne signed an extradition order to move Shakur to New Jersey to face two counts of attempted murder, attempted assault, and possession of dangerous weapons related to the alleged ambush; however, Shakur declined to waive her right to an extradition hearing, and asked for a full hearing before Middlesex County Court Judge John E. Bachman. Shakur was extradited to New York City on May 6, arraigned on May 11 (pleading not guilty), and remanded to jail by Justice Albert S. McGrover of the State Supreme Court, pending a pretrial hearing on July 2. In November 1974, New York State Supreme Court Justice Peter Farrell dismissed the attempted murder indictment because of insufficient evidence, declaring "The court can only note with disapproval that virtually a year has passed before counsel made an application for the most basic relief permitted by law, namely an attack on the sufficiency of the evidence submitted by the grand jury."Kidnapping trial
<mask> was indicted on May 30, 1974, on the charge of having robbed a Brooklyn bar and kidnapping bartender James E. Freeman for ransom. <mask> and co-defendant Ronald Myers were accused of entering the bar with pistols and shotguns, taking $50 from the register, kidnapping the bartender, leaving a note demanding a $20,000 ransom from the bar owner, and fleeing in a rented truck. Freeman was said to have later escaped unhurt. The text of <mask>'s opening statement in the trial is reproduced in her autobiography. <mask> and co-defendant Ronald Myers were acquitted on December 19, 1975, after seven hours of jury deliberation, ending a three-month trial in front of Judge William Thompson. Queens bank robbery trial
In July 1973, after being indicted by a grand jury, <mask> pleaded not guilty in Federal Court in Brooklyn to an indictment related to a $7,700 robbery of the Bankers Trust Company bank in Queens on August 31, 1971. Judge Jacob Mishlerset set a tentative trial date of November 5 that year.The trial was delayed until 1976, when Shakur was represented by Stanley Cohen and Evelyn Williams. In this trial, Shakur acted as her own co-counsel and told the jury in her opening testimony:

I have decided to act as co-counsel, and to make this opening statement, not because I have any illusions about my legal abilities, but, rather, because there are things that I must say to you. I have spent many days and nights behind bars thinking about this trial, this outrage. And in my own mind, only someone who has been so intimately a victim of this madness as I have can do justice to what I have to say. One bank employee testified that Shakur was one of the bank robbers, but three other bank employees (including two tellers) testified that they were uncertain. The prosecution showed surveillance photos of four of the six alleged robbers, contending that one of them was Shakur wearing a wig. Shakur was forcibly subdued and photographed by the FBI on the judge's order, after having refused to cooperate, believing that the FBI would use photo manipulation; a subsequent judge determined that the manners in which the photos were obtained violated Shakur's rights and ruled the new photos inadmissible.In her autobiography, Shakur recounts being beaten, choked, and kicked on the courtroom floor by five marshals, as Williams narrated the events to ensure they would appear on the court record. Shortly after deliberation began, the jury asked to see all the photographic exhibits taken from the surveillance footage. The jury determined that a widely circulated FBI photo allegedly showing Shakur participating in the robbery was not her. Shakur was acquitted after seven hours of jury deliberation on January 16, 1976, and was immediately remanded back to New Jersey for the Turnpike trial. The actual transfer took place on January 29. She was the only one of the six suspects in the robbery to be brought to trial. Andrew Jackson and two others indicted for the same robbery pleaded guilty; Jackson was sentenced to five years in prison and five years' probation; another was shot and killed in a gunfight in Florida on December 31, 1971, and the last remained at large at the time of <mask>'s acquittal.Turnpike shootout retrial

By the time she was retried in 1977, Acoli had already been convicted of shooting and murdering Foerster. The prosecution argued that Assata had fired the bullets that had wounded Harper, while the defense argued that the now deceased Zayd had fired them. Based on New Jersey law, if Shakur's presence at the scene could be considered as "aiding and abetting" the murder of Foerster, she could be convicted even if she had not fired the bullets which had killed him. A total of 289 articles had been published in the local press relating to the various crimes with which Shakur had been accused. Shakur again attempted to remove the trial to federal court. The United States District Court for the District of New Jersey denied the petition and also denied Shakur an injunction against the holding of trial proceedings on Fridays. An en banc panel of the United States Court of Appeals for the Third Circuit affirmed.The nine-week trial was widely publicized, and was even reported on by the Telegraph Agency of the Soviet Union (TASS). During the trial, hundreds of civil rights campaigners demonstrated outside of the Middlesex County courthouse each day. Following the 13-minute opening statement by Edward J. Barone, the first assistant Middlesex County prosecutor (directing the case for the state), William Kunstler (the chief of Shakur's defense staff) moved immediately for a mistrial, calling the eight-count grand jury indictment "adversary proceeding solely and exclusively under the control of the prosecutor", whom Kunstler accused of "improper prejudicial remarks"; Judge Theodore Appleby, noting the frequent defense interruptions that had characterized the previous days' jury selection, denied the motion. On February 23, Shakur's attorneys filed papers asking Judge Appleby to subpoena FBI Director Clarence Kelley, Senator Frank Church and other federal and New York City law enforcement officials to testify about the Counter Intelligence Program, which they alleged was designed to harass and disrupt black activist organizations. Kunstler had previously been successful in subpoenaing Kelley and Church for the trials of American Indian Movement (AIM) members charged with murdering FBI agents. The motion (argued March 2)—which also asked the court to require the production of memos, tapes, documents, and photographs of alleged COINTELPRO involvement from 1970 to 1973—was denied. Shakur herself was called as a witness on March 15, the first witness called by the defense; she denied shooting either Harper or Foerster, and also denied handling a weapon during the incident.She was questioned by her own attorney, Stuart Ball, for under 40 minutes, and then cross-examined by Barone for less than two hours (see the Witnesses section below). Ball's questioning ended with the following exchange:
On that night of May 2[n]d, did you shoot, kill, execute or have anything to do with the death of Trooper Werner Foerster? No. Did you shoot or assault Trooper James Harper? No. Under cross-examination, Shakur was unable to explain how three magazines of ammunition and 16 live shells had gotten into her shoulder bag; she also admitted to knowing that Zayd <mask> carried a gun at times, and specifically to seeing a gun sticking out of Acoli's pocket while stopping for supper at a Howard Johnson's restaurant shortly before the shooting. Shakur admitted to carrying an identification card with the name "Justine Henderson" in her billfold the night of the shootout, but denied using any of the aliases on the long list that Barone proceeded to read.Defense attorneys

Shakur's defense attorneys were William Kunstler (the chief of Shakur's defense staff), Stuart Ball, Robert Bloom, Raymond A. Brown, Stanley Cohen (who died of unknown causes early on in the Turnpike trial), Lennox Hinds, Florynce Kennedy, Louis Myers, Laurence Stern, and Evelyn Williams,

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 Shakur's aunt. Of these attorneys, Kunstler, Ball, Cohen, Myers, Stern and Williams appeared in court for the turnpike trial. Kunstler became involved in Shakur's trials in 1975, when contacted by Williams, and commuted from New York City to New Brunswick every day with Stern. Her attorneys, in particular Lennox Hinds, were often held in contempt of court, which the National Conference of Black Lawyers cited as an example of systemic bias in the judicial system. The New Jersey Legal Ethics Committee also investigated complaints against Hinds for comparing Shakur's murder trial to "legalized lynching" undertaken by a "kangaroo court". Hinds' disciplinary proceeding reached the U.S. Supreme Court in Middlesex County Ethics Committee v. Garden State Bar Ass'n (1982).According to Kunstler's autobiography, the sizable contingent of New Jersey State Troopers guarding the courthouse were under strict orders from their commander, Col. Clinton Pagano, to completely shun Shakur's defense attorneys. Judge Appleby also threatened Kunstler with dismissal and contempt of court after he delivered an October 21, 1976, speech at nearby Rutgers University that in part discussed the upcoming trial, but later ruled that Kunstler could represent Shakur. Until obtaining a court order, Kunstler  was forced to strip naked and undergo a body search before each visit with Shakur—during which Shakur was shackled to a bed by both ankles. Judge Appleby also refused to investigate a burglary of her defense counsel's office that resulted in the disappearance of trial documents, amounting to half of the legal papers related to her case. Her lawyers also claimed that their offices were bugged. Witnesses
Sundiata Acoli, <mask> <mask>, Trooper Harper, and a New Jersey Turnpike driver who saw part of the incident were the only surviving witnesses. Acoli did not testify or make any pre-trial statements, nor did he testify in his own trial or give a statement to the police.The driver traveling north on the turnpike testified that he had seen a State Trooper struggling with a Black man between a white vehicle and a State Trooper car, whose revolving lights illuminated the area. Shakur testified that Trooper Harper shot her after she raised her arms to comply with his demand. She said that the second shot hit her in the back as she turned to avoid it, and that she fell onto the road for the duration of the gunfight before crawling back into the backseat of the Pontiac—which Acoli drove  down the road and parked. She testified that she remained there until State Troopers dragged her onto the road. Trooper Harper's official reports state that after he stopped the Pontiac, he ordered Acoli to the back of the vehicle for Trooper Foerster—who had arrived on the scene—to examine his driver's license. The reports then state that after Acoli complied, and as Harper was looking inside the vehicle to examine the registration, Trooper Foerster yelled and held up an ammunition magazine as Shakur simultaneously reached into her red pocketbook, pulled out a 9mm handgun and fired at him. Trooper Harper's reports then state that he ran to the rear of his car and shot at Shakur who had exited the vehicle and was firing from a crouched position next to the vehicle.Jury
A total of 408 potential jurors were questioned during the voir dire, which concluded on February 14. All of the 15 jurors—ten women and five men—were white, and most were under thirty years old. Five jurors had personal ties to State Troopers (one girlfriend, two nephews, and two friends). A sixteenth female juror was removed before the trial formally opened, when it was determined that Sheriff Joseph DeMarino of Middlesex County, while a private detective several years earlier, had worked for a lawyer who represented the juror's husband. Judge Appleby repeatedly denied Kunstler's requests for DeMarino to be removed from his responsibilities for the duration of the trial "because he did not divulge his association with the juror". One prospective juror was dismissed for reading Target Blue, a book by Robert Daley, a former New York City Deputy Police Commander, which dealt in part with Shakur and had been left in the jury assembly room. Before the jury entered the courtroom, Judge Appleby ordered <mask>'s lawyers to remove a copy of Roots: The Saga of an American Family by Alex Haley from a position on the defense counsel table easily visible to jurors.The Roots TV miniseries adapted from the book and shown shortly before the trial was believed to have evoked feelings of "guilt and sympathy" with many white viewers. Shakur's attorneys sought a new trial on the grounds that one jury member, John McGovern, had violated the jury's sequestration order. Judge Appleby rejected Kunstler's claim that the juror had violated the order. McGovern later sued Kunstler for defamation; Kunstler eventually publicly apologized to McGovern and paid him a small settlement. Additionally, in his autobiography, Kunstler alleged that he later learned from a law enforcement agent that a New Jersey State Assembly member had addressed the jury at the hotel where they were sequestered, urging them to convict Shakur. Medical evidence

A key element of Shakur's defense was medical testimony meant to demonstrate that she was shot with her hands up and that she would have been subsequently unable to fire a weapon. A neurologist testified that the median nerve in Shakur's right arm was severed by the second bullet, making her unable to pull a trigger.Neurosurgeon Dr. Arthur Turner Davidson, Associate Professor of Surgery at Albert Einstein College of Medicine, testified that the wounds in her upper arms, armpit and chest, and severed median nerve that instantly paralyzed her right arm, would only have been caused if both arms were raised, and that to sustain such injuries while crouching and firing a weapon (as described in Trooper Harper's testimony) "would be anatomically impossible". Davidson based his testimony on an August 4, 1976, examination of Shakur and on X-rays taken immediately after the shootout at Middlesex General Hospital. Prosecutor Barone questioned whether Davidson was qualified to make such a judgment 39 months after the injury; Barone proceeded to suggest (while a female Sheriff's attendant acted out his suggestion) that Shakur was struck in the right arm and collar bone and "then spun around by the impact of the bullet so an immediate second shot entered the fleshy part of her upper left arm" to which Davidson replied "Impossible." Dr. David Spain, a pathologist from Brookdale Community College, testified that her bullet scars as well as X-rays supported her claim that her arms were raised, and that there was "no conceivable way" the first bullet could have hit Shakur's clavicle if her arm was down. Judge Appleby eventually cut off funds for any further expert defense testimony. Shakur, in her autobiography, and Williams, in Inadmissible Evidence, both claim that it was difficult to find expert witnesses for the trial, because of the expense and because most forensic and ballistic specialists declined on the grounds of a conflict of interest when approached because they routinely performed such work for law enforcement officials. Other evidence
According to Angela Davis, neutron activation analysis that was administered after the shootout showed no gunpowder residue on Shakur's fingers and forensic analysis performed at the Trenton, New Jersey, crime lab and the FBI crime labs in Washington, D.C., did not find her fingerprints on any weapon at the scene.According to tape recordings and police reports made several hours after the shoot-out, when Harper returned on foot to the administration building 200 yards (183 m) away, he did not report Foerster's presence at the scene; no one at headquarters knew of Foerster's involvement in the shoot-out until his body was discovered beside his patrol car, more than an hour later. Conviction and sentencing
On March 24, the jurors listened for 45 minutes to a rereading of testimony of the State Police chemist regarding the blood found at the scene, on the LeMans, and Shakur's clothing. That night, the second night of jury deliberation, the jury asked Judge Appleby to repeat his instructions regarding the four assault charges 30 minutes before retiring for the night, which led to speculation that the jury had decided in Shakur's favor on the remaining charges, especially the two counts of murder. Appleby reiterated that the jury must consider separately the four assault charges (atrocious assault and battery, assault on a police officer acting in the line of duty, assault with a deadly weapon, and assault with intent to kill), each of which carried a total maximum penalty of 33 years in prison. The other charges were: first-degree murder (of Foerster), second-degree murder (of Zayd <mask>), illegal possession of a weapon, and armed robbery (related to Foerster's service revolver). The jury also asked Appleby to repeat the definitions of "intent" and "reasonable doubt". <mask> was convicted on all eight counts: two murder charges, and six assault charges.Upon hearing the verdict, <mask> said—in a barely audible voice— "I am ashamed that I have even taken part in this trial", and that the jury was racist and had "convicted a woman with her hands up". When Judge Appleby told the court attendants to "remove the prisoner", <mask> herself replied: "the prisoner will walk away on her own feet". After Joseph W. Lewis, the jury foreman, read the verdict, Kunstler asked that the jury be removed before alleging that one juror had violated the sequestration order (see above). At the post-trial press conference, Kunstler blamed the verdict on racism, stating that "the white element was there to destroy her". When asked by a reporter why, if that were the case, it took the jury 24 hours to reach a verdict, Kunstler replied, "That was just a pretense." A few minutes later the prosecutor Barone disagreed with Kunstler's assessment saying the trial's outcome was decided "completely on the facts". At <mask>'s sentencing hearing on April 25, Appleby sentenced her to 26 to 33 years in state prison (10 to 12 for the four counts of assault, 12 to 15 for robbery, 2 to 3 for armed robbery, plus 2 to 3 for aiding and abetting the murder of Foerster), to be served consecutively with her mandatory life sentence.However, Appleby dismissed the second-degree murder of Zayd <mask>, as the New Jersey Supreme Court had recently narrowed the application of the law. Appleby finally sentenced Shakur to 30 days in the Middlesex County Workhouse for contempt of court, concurrent with the other sentences, for refusing to rise when he entered the courtroom. To become eligible for parole, Shakur would have had to serve a minimum of 25 years, which would have included her four years in custody during the trials. Nelson murder dismissal
In October 1977, New York State Superior Court Justice John Starkey dismissed murder and robbery charges against Shakur related to the death of Richard Nelson during a hold-up of a Brooklyn social club on December 28, 1972, ruling that the state had delayed too long in bringing her to trial. Judge Starkey said, "People have constitutional rights, and you can't shuffle them around." The case was delayed in being brought to trial as a result of an agreement between the governors of New York and New Jersey as to the priority of the various charges against Shakur. Three other defendants were indicted in relation to the same holdup: Melvin Kearney, who died in 1976 from an eight-floor fall while trying to escape from the Brooklyn House of Detention, Twymon Myers, who was killed by police while a fugitive, and Andrew Jackson, the charges against whom were dismissed when two prosecution witnesses could not identify him in a lineup.Attempted robbery dismissal
On November 22, 1977, Shakur pleaded not guilty to an attempted armed robbery indictment stemming from the 1971 incident at the Statler Hilton Hotel. Shakur was accused of attempting to rob a Michigan man staying at the hotel of $250 of cash and personal property. The prosecutor was C. Richard Gibbons. The charges were dismissed without trial. Imprisonment

After the Turnpike shootings, Shakur was briefly held at the Garden State Youth Correctional Facility in Yardville, Burlington County, New Jersey, and later moved to Rikers Island Correctional Institution for Women in New York City where she was kept in solitary confinement for 21 months. <mask>'s only daughter, Kakuya <mask>, was conceived during her trial and born on September 11, 1974, in the "fortified psychiatric ward" at Elmhurst General Hospital in Queens, where Shakur stayed for a few days before being returned to Rikers Island. In her autobiography, Shakur claims that she was beaten and restrained by several large female officers after refusing a medical exam from a prison doctor shortly after giving birth.After a bomb threat was made against Judge Appleby, Sheriff Joseph DeMarino lied to the press about the exact date of her transfer to Clinton Correctional Facility for Women; He later claimed the threat to be the cause of his falsification. She was also transferred from the Clinton Correctional Facility for Women to a special area staffed by women guards at the Garden State Youth Correctional Facility, where she was the only female inmate, for "security reasons". When Kunstler first took on Shakur's case (before meeting her), he described her basement cell as "adequate", which nearly resulted in his dismissal as her attorney. On May 6, 1977, Judge Clarkson Fisher, of the United States District Court for the District of New Jersey, denied Shakur's request for an injunction requiring her transfer from the all-male facility to Clinton Correctional Facility for Women; the Third Circuit affirmed. On April 8, 1978, Shakur was transferred to Alderson Federal Prison Camp in Alderson, West Virginia, where she met Puerto Rican nationalist Lolita Lebrón and Mary Alice, a Catholic nun, who introduced Shakur to the concept of liberation theology. At Alderson, Shakur was housed in the Maximum Security Unit, which also contained several members of the Aryan Sisterhood as well as Sandra Good and Lynette "Squeaky" Fromme, followers of Charles Manson. On February 20, 1979, after the Maximum Security Unit at Alderson was closed, Shakur was transferred to the Clinton Correctional Facility for Women in New Jersey.According to her attorney Lennox Hinds, Shakur "understates the awfulness of the condition in which she was incarcerated", which included vaginal and anal searches. Hinds argues that "in the history of New Jersey, no woman pretrial detainee or prisoner has ever been treated as she was, continuously confined in a men's prison, under twenty-four-hour surveillance of her most intimate functions, without intellectual sustenance, adequate medical attention, and exercise, and without the company of other women for all the years she was in custody". Shakur was identified as a political prisoner as early as October 8, 1973, by Angela Davis, and in an April 3, 1977, The New York Times advertisement purchased by the Easter Coalition for Human Rights. An international panel of seven jurists were invited by Hinds to tour a number of U.S. prisons, and concluded in a report filed with the United Nations Commission on Human Rights that the conditions of her solitary confinement were "totally unbefitting any prisoner". Their investigation, which focused on alleged human rights abuses of political prisoners, cited Shakur as "one of the worst cases" of such abuses and including her in "a class of victims of FBI misconduct through the COINTELPRO strategy and other forms of illegal government conduct who as political activists have been selectively targeted for provocation, false arrests, entrapment, fabrication of evidence, and spurious criminal prosecutions". Amnesty International, however, did not regard Shakur as a former political prisoner. Escape
In early 1979, "the Family", a group of BLA members, began to plan Shakur's escape from prison.They financed this by stealing $105,000 from a Bamberger's store in Paramus, New Jersey. On November 2, 1979, Shakur escaped the Clinton Correctional Facility for Women in New Jersey, when three members of the Black Liberation Army visiting her drew concealed .45-caliber pistols and a stick of dynamite, seized two correction officers as hostages, commandeered a van and escaped. No one was injured during the prison break, including the officers held as hostages who were left in a parking lot. According to later court testimony, Shakur lived in Pittsburgh until August 1980, when she flew to the Bahamas. Mutulu <mask>, Silvia Baraldini, Sekou Odinga, and

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 Marilyn Buck were charged with assisting in her escape; Ronald Boyd Hill was also held on charges related to the escape. In part for his role in the event, Mutulu was named on July 23, 1982, as the 380th addition to the FBI's Ten Most Wanted Fugitives list, where he remained for the next four years until his capture in 1986. State correction officials disclosed in November 1979 that they had not run identity checks on Shakur's visitors and that the three men and one woman who assisted in her escape had presented false identification to enter the prison's visitor room, before which they were not searched.Mutulu <mask> and Marilyn Buck were convicted in 1988 of several robberies as well as the prison escape. At the time of the escape, Kunstler had just started to prepare her appeal. After her escape, Shakur lived as a fugitive for several years. The FBI circulated wanted posters throughout the New York – New Jersey area; her supporters hung "Assata Shakur is Welcome Here" posters in response. In New York, three days after her escape, more than 5,000 demonstrators organized by the National Black Human Rights Coalition carried signs with the same slogan. At the rally, a statement from Shakur was circulated condemning U.S. prison conditions and calling for an independent "New Afrikan" state. For years after Shakur's escape, the movements, activities and phone calls of her friends and relatives—including her daughter walking to school in upper Manhattan—were monitored by investigators in an attempt to ascertain her whereabouts.In July 1980, FBI director William Webster said that the search for Shakur had been frustrated by residents' refusal to cooperate, and a New York Times editorial opined that the department's commitment to "enforce the law with vigor—but also with sensitivity for civil rights and civil liberties" had been "clouded" by an "apparently crude sweep" through a Harlem building in search of Shakur. In particular, one pre-dawn April 20, 1980, raid on 92 Morningside Avenue, during which FBI agents armed with shotguns and machine guns broke down doors and searched through the building for several hours while preventing residents from leaving, was seen by residents as having "racist overtones". In October 1980, New Jersey and New York City Police denied published reports that they had declined to raid a Bedford-Stuyvesant, Brooklyn building where Shakur was suspected to be hiding for fear of provoking a racial incident. Since her escape, Shakur has been charged with unlawful flight to avoid imprisonment. Political asylum in Cuba
Shakur was in Cuba by 1984; in that year she was granted political asylum there. The Cuban government paid approximately $13 a day toward her living expenses. In 1985, her daughter, Kakuya, who had been raised by Shakur's mother in New York, came to live with her.In 1987, her presence in Cuba became widely known when she agreed to be interviewed by Newsday. In an open letter, Shakur has called Cuba "One of the Largest, Most Resistant and Most Courageous Palenques (Maroon Camps) that has ever existed on the Face of this Planet". She has praised Fidel Castro as a "hero of the oppressed" and referred to herself as a "20th century escaped slave". Shakur is also known to have worked as an English-language editor for Radio Havana Cuba. Books
In 1987, she published Assata: An Autobiography, which was written in Cuba. Her autobiography has been cited in relation to critical legal studies and critical race theory. The book does not give a detailed account of her involvement in the BLA or the events on the New Jersey Turnpike, except to say that the jury "[c]onvicted a woman with her hands up!"It gives an account of her life beginning with her youth in the South and New York. Shakur challenges traditional styles of literary autobiography and offers a perspective on her life that is not easily accessible to the public. The book was published by Lawrence Hill & Company in the United States and Canada but the copyright is held by Zed Books Ltd. of London due to "Son of Sam" laws, which restrict who can receive profits from a book. In the six months preceding the publications of the book, Evelyn Williams, Shakur's aunt and attorney, made several trips to Cuba and served as a go-between with Hill. Her autobiography was republished in Britain in 2014 and a dramatized version performed on BBC Radio 4 in July 2017. In 1993, she published a second book, Still Black, Still Strong, with Dhoruba bin Wahad and Mumia Abu-Jamal. In 2005, SUNY Press released The New Abolitionists (Neo)Slave Narratives and Contemporary Prison Writings, edited and with an added introduction by Joy James, in which Shakur's Women in Prison: How We Are 1978 is featured.Extradition attempts

In 1997, Carl Williams, the superintendent of the New Jersey State Police, wrote a letter to Pope John Paul II asking him to raise the issue of Shakur's extradition during his talks with President Fidel Castro. During the pope's visit to Cuba in 1998, Shakur agreed to an interview with NBC journalist Ralph Penza. Shakur later published an extensive criticism of the NBC segment, which inter-spliced footage of Trooper Foerster's grieving widow with an FBI photo connected to a bank robbery of which Shakur had been acquitted. On March 10, 1998 New Jersey Governor Christine Todd Whitman asked Attorney General Janet Reno to do whatever it would take to return Shakur from Cuba. Later in 1998, U.S. media widely reported claims that the United States State Department had offered to lift the Cuban embargo in exchange for the return of 90 U.S. fugitives, including Shakur. The United States Congress passed a non-binding resolution in September 1998, asking Cuba for the return of Shakur as well as 90 fugitives believed by Congress to be residing in Cuba; House Concurrent Resolution 254 passed 371–0 in the House and by unanimous consent in the Senate. The Resolution was due in no small part to the lobbying efforts of Governor Whitman and New Jersey Representative Bob Franks.Before the passage of the Resolution, Franks stated: "This escaped murderer now lives a comfortable life in Cuba and has launched a public relations campaign in which she attempts to portray herself as an innocent victim rather than a cold-blooded murderer." In an open letter to Castro, chair of the Congressional Black Caucus Representative Maxine Waters of California later explained that many members of the Caucus (including herself) were against Shakur's extradition but had mistakenly voted for the bill, which was placed on the accelerated suspension calendar, generally reserved for non-controversial legislation. In the letter, Waters explained her opposition, calling COINTELPRO "illegal, clandestine political persecution". On May 2, 2005, the 32nd anniversary of the Turnpike shootings, the FBI classified her as a domestic terrorist, increasing the reward for assistance in her capture to $1 million, the largest reward placed on an individual in the history of New Jersey. New Jersey State Police superintendent Rick Fuentes said "she is now 120 pounds of money." The bounty announcement reportedly caused Shakur to "drop out of sight" after having previously lived relatively openly (including having her home telephone number listed in her local telephone directory). New York City Councilman Charles Barron, a former Black Panther, has called for the bounty to be rescinded.The New Jersey State Police and Federal Bureau of Investigation each still have an agent officially assigned to her case. Calls for Shakur's extradition increased following Fidel Castro's transfer of presidential duties; in a May 2005 television address, Castro had called Shakur a victim of racial persecution, saying "they wanted to portray her as a terrorist, something that was an injustice, a brutality, an infamous lie." In 2013, the FBI announced it had added Shakur to its list of 'most wanted terrorists', the first time that a woman was so designated. The reward for her capture and return was also doubled to $2 million. In June 2017, President Donald Trump gave a speech "cancelling" the Cuban thaw policies of his predecessor Barack Obama. A condition of making a new deal between the United States and Cuba is the release of political prisoners and the return of fugitives from justice. Trump specifically called for the return of "the cop-killer Joanne Chesimard".Cultural influence
A documentary film about Shakur, Eyes of the Rainbow, written and directed by Cuban filmmaker Gloria Rolando, appeared in 1997. The official premiere of the film in Havana in 2004 was promoted by Casa de las Américas, the main cultural forum of the Cuban government. Assata aka Joanne Chesimard is a 2008 biographical film directed by Fred Baker. The film premiered at the San Diego Black Film Festival and starred <mask> <mask> herself. The National Conference of Black Lawyers and Mos Def are among the professional organizations and entertainers to support <mask> <mask>; the "Hands Off Assata" campaign is organized by Dream Hampton. Numerous musicians have composed and recorded songs about her or dedicated to her:
Common recorded "A Song for Assata" on his album Like Water for Chocolate (2000) after traveling to Havana to meet with Shakur personally. Paris ("Assata's Song", in Sleeping with the Enemy (1992),
Public Enemy ("Rebel Without A Pause" in It Takes a Nation of Millions to Hold Us Back(1988),
2Pac ("Words of Wisdom" in 2Pacalypse Now (1991),
Digital Underground ("Heartbeat Props" in Sons of the P, 1991),
The Roots ("The Adventures in Wonderland" in Illadelph Halflife, 1996),
Piebald ("If Marcus Garvey Dies, Then Marcus Garvey Lives" in If It Weren't for Venetian Blinds, It Would Be Curtains for Us All, 1999),
Asian Dub Foundation ("Committed to Life" in Community Music, 2000),
Saul Williams ("Black Stacey" in Saul Williams, 2004),
Rebel Diaz ("Which Side Are You On?"in Otro Guerrillero Mixtape Vol. 2, 2008),
 Lowkey ("Something Wonderful" in Soundtrack to the Struggle, 2011),
Murs ("Tale of Two Cities" in The Final Adventure, 2012),
Jay Z ("Open Letter Part II" in 2013),
Digable Planets, The Underachievers and X-Clan have also recorded songs about Shakur. <mask> has been described as a "rap music legend" and a "minor cause celebre". On December 12, 2006, the Chancellor of the City University of New York, Matthew Goldstein, directed City College's president, Gregory H. Williams, to remove the "unauthorized and inappropriate" designation of the "Guillermo Morales/Assata Shakur Community and Student Center," which was named by students in 1989. A student group won the right to use the lounge after a campus shutdown over proposed tuition increases. CUNY was sued by student and alumni groups after removing the plaque. As of April 7, 2010, the presiding judge has ruled that the issues of students' free speech and administrators' immunity from suit "deserve a trial".Following controversy, in 1995, Borough of Manhattan Community College renamed a scholarship that had previously been named for Shakur. In 2008, a Bucknell University professor included Shakur in a course on "African-American heroes"—along with figures such as Harriet Tubman, Sojourner Truth, John Henry, Malcolm X, and Angela Davis. Her autobiography is studied together with those of Angela Davis and Elaine Brown, the only women activists of the Black Power movement who have published book-length autobiographies. Rutgers University professor H. Bruce Franklin, who excerpts Shakur's book in a class on 'Crime and Punishment in American Literature,' describes her as a "revolutionary fighter against imperialism". Black NJ State Trooper Anthony Reed (who has left the force) sued the police force because, among other things, persons had hung posters of Shakur, altered to include Reed's badge number, in a Newark barracks. He felt it was intended to insult him, as she had killed an officer, and was "racist in nature". According to Dylan Rodriguez, to many "U.S. radicals and revolutionaries" Shakur represents a "venerated (if sometimes fetishized) signification of liberatory desire and possibility".The largely Internet-based "Hands Off Assata!" campaign is coordinated by Chicago-area Black Radical Congress activists. In 2015, New Jersey's Kean University dropped hip-hop artist Common as a commencement speaker because of police complaints. Members of the State Troopers Fraternal Association of New Jersey expressed their anger over Common's "A Song For Assata". In 2015, Black Lives Matter co-founder Alicia Garza writes: "When I use Assata’s powerful demand in my organizing work, I always begin by sharing where it comes from, sharing about Assata’s significance to the Black Liberation Movement, what its political purpose and message is, and why it’s important in our context." The Chicago Black activist group Assata's Daughters is named in her honor. In April 2017, former San Francisco 49ers quarterback Colin Kaepernick's foundation donated $25,000 to the group.In July 2017, the Women's March official Twitter feed celebrated Shakur's birthday, leading to criticism from some right-wing media outlets. In April 2018, a North Carolina court ordered that payment of $15,000 be made to Shakur's representative, her sister Beverly Goins, as part of a land deal. See also
List of fugitives from justice who disappeared

Notes

References

Sources
Browder, Laura (2006). Her Best Shot: Women and Guns in America. UNC Press. .
 Burrough, Bryan. .
Christol, Helene. Gysin, Fritz, and Mulvey, Christopher (eds.). (2001)."Militant Autobiography: The Case of Assata Shakur," in Black Liberation in the Americas. LIT Verlag Berlin-Hamburg-Münster. .
Churchill, Ward and James Vander Wall. (2002). The Cointelpro papers: documents from the FBI's secret wars against dissent in the United States. South End Press. .
Cleaver, Kathleen, and Katsiaficas, George N. (2001). Liberation, Imagination, and the Black Panther Party: A New Look at the Panthers and Their Legacy. Routledge. .
James, Joy (2003).Imprisoned Intellectuals: America's Political Prisoners Write on Life, Liberation, and Rebellion. Rowman & Littlefield. .
Jones, Charles Earl (1998). The Black Panther Party (Reconsidered). Black Classic Press. .
Kunstler, William Moses. (1994). My Life as a Radical Lawyer. Secaucus, New Jersey: Birch Lane Press. .
Perkins, Margo V. (2000).Autobiography as Activism: Three Black Women of the Sixties. Univ. Press of Mississippi. .
Rodriguez, Dylan (2006). Forced Passages: Imprisoned Radical Intellectuals and the U.S. Prison Regime. University of Minnesota Press. .
Scheffler, Judith A. (2002). Wall Tappings: An International Anthology of Women's Prison Writings, 200 to the Present.Feminist Press. .
<mask>, <mask> (1987, New edition November 1, 1999). Assata: An Autobiography. Chicago: Lawrence Hill Books. .
Tomlinson, Gerald (1994). Murdered in Jersey. Rutgers University Press. .
Williams, Evelyn (1993). Inadmissible Evidence: The Story of the African-American Trial Lawyer Who Defended the Black Liberation Army. Brooklyn, N.Y.: Lawrence Hill Books. .

Further reading
Belton, Brian A.(2007). <mask> <mask>: A Voice from the Palenques in Black Routes: Legacy of African Diaspora. Hansib Publications Ltd. . External links

 "New Most Wanted Terrorist Joanne Chesimard; First Woman Added to List," May 2, 2013, Federal Bureau of Investigation
 Assata <mask> Speaks – website in support of Shakur
 "The Story of Joanne Chesimard," May 2003 editorial, NJLawman.com
 The Eyes Of The Rainbow documentary
 Immoral Bounty for Assata by Michael Ratner, Covert Action Quarterly, October 27, 1998
 Why Cuba will never send <mask> <mask> to the U.S. by Achy Obejas. Chicago Tribune, December 29, 2014. Most Wanted Terrorists: JOANNE DEBORAH CHESIMARD - Federal Bureau of Investigation

1947 births
Activists from New York (state)
African-American communists
American Marxists
American autobiographers
American communists
American escapees
American exiles
American expatriates in Cuba
American female criminals
American female murderers
American murderers
American people convicted of assault
American people convicted of murdering police officers
American prisoners sentenced to life imprisonment
American robbers
American shooting survivors
American socialists
Black Power
Borough of Manhattan Community College alumni
COINTELPRO targets
City College of New York alumni
Communist women writers
Escapees from New Jersey detention
FBI Most Wanted Terrorists
Fugitives wanted by the United States
Fugitives wanted on murder charges
Living people
Members of the Black Liberation Army
Members of the Black Panther Party
People convicted of murder by New Jersey
Prisoners sentenced to life imprisonment by New Jersey
Shakur family
Women autobiographers
Writers from

masks: Shakur Assata Shakur Assata Shakur Shakur Shakur Assata Assata Shakur Shakur Assata Shakur


texts:
<mask> (born January 18, 1967) is an American politician who represents the 26th district in the New York State Senate, representing Lower Manhattan and the western part of Brooklyn since December 2017. He previously served in the New York State Assembly representing the East Side of Manhattan. <mask> is a Democrat. Life and career
<mask> is a lifelong resident of New York City. He was born and raised on Staten Island and graduated from Regis High School in Manhattan. <mask> tutored students at the Lower East Side Nativity Mission Center.He graduated with an B.A. in politics from Princeton University in 1989.He then received a Juris Doctor from New York University School of Law. He worked as an attorney at the New York law firms Kaye Scholer and Schulte Roth & Zabel. While living in Manhattan, Kavanagh lived in many different neighborhoods:  the Lower East Side, Murray Hill, NoMad, and Turtle Bay. He was an aide to former New York City Mayors Ed Koch and David Dinkins. He served as chief of staff to New York City Council member Gale Brewer. Kavanagh began government service as an aide to Mayor Ed Koch and has served in three mayoral administrations. After the Happy Land Social Club fire claimed the lives of 87 people in 1990, Kavanagh helped coordinate the city's response to the tragedy on behalf of Mayor David Dinkins, co-designing a task force that shut down the most grievous fire code offenders.At the Mayor's Office, <mask> also played a key role in launching the New York City Department of Homeless Services and he then served as the agency's first Policy Director. As Chief-of-Staff for then-New York City Council member Gale Brewer, Kavanagh negotiated enactment of the Domestic Worker Protection Act, promoting the rights of housekeepers and caregivers. With then-Councilmember <mask>, Councilmember Brewer, and dozens of their colleagues on the Council, Kavanagh helped to draft and secure passage of Council Resolution 549, opposing the imminent invasion of Iraq. Kavanagh has served as a counselor, volunteer, and board member at the Lower East Side's Nativity Middle School and community center, and as a board member of the Jesuit Volunteer Corps. He is a member of the New York City Bar Association and has served on the Association's Election Law Committee. Following an unsuccessful bid for the New York City Council in 2005, Kavanagh was first elected to the New York State Assembly in November 2006. He is a member of the Democratic Party and has been endorsed by the Working Families Party.<mask> is the co-chair of the New York chapter of State Legislators Against Illegal Guns. He is also the Chair of the New York State Caucus of Environmental Legislators, a non-partisan coalition of over 30 members of the NYS legislature. <mask> has been awarded the League of Conservation Voters Eco-Star Award, the highest rating of any legislator in 2010 from Environmental Advocates of New York, the Baruch College Legislator of the Year Award, and a perfect rating from the League of Humane Voters. New York State Senate
In 2017, <mask> announced that he would run in the special election to succeed Senator Daniel Squadron, who was resigning to found a non-profit. Not without criticism, <mask> was nominated as the Democratic candidate, despite representing very little of the same territory in the state Assembly that the Senate district encompassed. Despite this, <mask> easily won election. He was easily re-elected to a full first term in 2018.<mask> has been a proponent of election reform. Stating New Yorkers "have some of the worst election laws in the country," <mask> introduced a bill "that would allow voters to cast ballots before Election Day". Until New York enacted early voting in 2019, it was the largest state with no advance voting regime. With Democrats taking the majority in the Senate in 2019, <mask> was named Chair of the Committee on Housing, Construction and Community Development. <mask> currently lives in his district in the East Side of Manhattan. See also
 List of members of the New York State Assembly

References

Further reading
<mask>, David "Black, Blind, & In Charge: A Story of Visionary Leadership and Overcoming Adversity." New York, New York, 2020

External links
 New York State Senate: <mask>gh
 Vote Smart: Senator <mask><mask> (NY)

1967 births
Living people
Regis High School (New York City) alumni
Members of the New York State Assembly
New York (state) Democrats
New York (state) state senators
New York University School of Law alumni
Princeton University alumni
21st-century American politicians
Kaye Scholer

masks:
Brian Patrick Kavanagh
Kavanagh
Kavanagh
Brian
Brian
Bill Perkins
Kavanagh
Kavanagh
Kavanagh
Kavanagh
Kavanagh
Kavanagh
Kavanagh
Kavanagh
Kavanagh
Paterson
Brian Kavana
Brian P
. Kavanagh


texts:
<mask> (born Douglass St. Clair Smith; August 21, 1953) is an American writer, filmmaker and broadcaster, best known as the author and publisher of the first screed of the Church of the SubGenius. He is credited with founding the Church with friend Philo Drummond in 1979, though Stang himself denied this and claimed the organization was founded in 1953 by J. R. "Bob" Dobbs. Born in Washington, D.C. and raised in Fort Worth, Texas, he attended the St. Mark's School of Texas. Since the publication of the first SubGenius pamphlet in 1980, Stang has embarked on a worldwide crusade (spanning at least three continents) to promote the Church. In May 2006 he finished writing, editing and designing a new SubGenius book for Thunder's Mouth Press, The SubGenius Psychlopaedia of Slack: The Bobliographon. He has appeared on several national radio and television shows, including The Jon Stewart Show on MTV. Stang is an instructor on the faculty of the Maybe Logic Academy.Both he and J.R. "Bob" Dobbs appear as characters in John Shirley's science fiction novel Kamus of Kadizar: The Black Hole of Carcosa. SubGenius Foundation
Stang also founded the business entity of the Church, the SubGenius Foundation. The SubGenius Foundation was located in Dallas, Texas, for most of its existence, though Stang relocated to Cleveland Heights, Ohio in 1999. The SubGenius Foundation was based  there from 1999 to 2017, and the syndicated show The Hour of Slack is produced partially at WCSB at Cleveland State University. His "Rants" are a regular feature at the Starwood Festival and WinterStar Symposium, both produced by the Association for Consciousness Exploration (ACE). The Church has collaborated with ACE on a number of projects, including CDs, DVDs and the Rant 'n Rave events in Cleveland, Ohio. He was awarded Best Crack-Pot Preacher by the Cleveland Scene in 2000.Stang continues to promote the Church, and he is a prominent member of Cleveland's underground pop culture scene. In 2017 the Foundation and Stang moved to Glen Rose, Texas. High Weirdness by Mail
In 1988, Stang compiled a book called High Weirdness by Mail — A Directory of the Fringe: Crackpots, Kooks & True Visionaries. The book examined many non-mainstream or marginal cultural movements of the period, as well as providing contact information for those wishing to interact directly with people involved in these movements. Filmmaking
Stang is a "filmmaker" and an "editor". In addition to creating several stop-motion short films with such titles as Reproduction Cycle Among Unicellular Life Forms Under the Rocks of Mars  and Let's Visit the World of the Future, he also edited the 1989 feature-length VHS video spoof-documentary Arise! for the Church of the SubGenius, as well as providing narration and commentary for the 1999 documentary Grass.Commercial jobs have included a 60-second "Art Break" animated short for MTV, animation in a Devo music video, as well as writing and editing the feature-length documentaries China Run and The Cu-Chi Tunnels. Bibliography
 1983 – The Book of the SubGenius (McGraw-Hill)  / Reprinted 1987 (Simon & Schuster/Fireside)
 1988 – High Weirdness by Mail (Simon & Schuster/Fireside)
 1990 – Three-Fisted Tales of "Bob" (Simon & Schuster/Fireside)
 1994 – Revelation X: The "Bob" Apocryphon – Hidden Teachings and Deuterocanonical Texts of J. R. "Bob" Dobbs (Simon & Schuster/Fireside), with illustrations by St. Joe Riley et al.,
 2006 – The SubGenius Psychlopaedia of Slack: The Bobliographon (Avalon/Thunder's Mouth Press), with illustrations by St. Joe Riley et al.,

Discography
Partial discography includes:
 Starwood Slack! (recorded rant on cassette) (ACE)
 Invisible College Drop-Outs (recorded rant on cassette) (ACE)
 The Stupid Rant (recorded rant on cassette) (ACE)
 High Weirdness By Mail (recorded rant on cassette) (ACE)
 Rev. Stang Live at Starwood (recorded rant on CD + music)  (ACE)
 I Was A Cultist For The A.T.F. (radio drama starring Stang)
 The Once and Future Legend (panel discussion on cassette with Ariana Lightningstorm, Patricia Monaghan, Jeff Rosenbaum, Robert Shea and Robert Anton Wilson) (ACE)
 What IS the Conspiracy, Anyway? (panel discussion on cassette with Anodea Judith, Jeff Rosenbaum, Robert Shea and Robert Anton Wilson) (ACE)

Filmography
Partial filmography includes:
 1969 – The Wad and the Worm (Director, writer, animator)
 1973 – Let's Visit the World of the Future (Director, writer, & actor)
 1978 – Reproduction Cycle Among Unicellular Life Forms Under the Rocks of Mars (Director, writer, & narrator)
 1979 – Mono (Director & writer)
 1987 – China Run (Video editor)
 1989 – Arise! : The SubGenius Video (Island Records) (Director, writer, & appears as self)
 1990 – The Cu Chi Tunnels (Video & script editor)
 1992 – Arise!: The SubGenius Video (Polygram Records) ASIN 6302311616 (Director, writer, & appears as self)
 1992 – Church of the Subgenius: Sect? Satire? Or Satanism? (Appears as self)
 1999 – Grass (Narrator & does commentary)
 2000 – Duelin' Firemen! (Actor)
 2003 – Maybe Logic: The Lives and Ideas of Robert Anton Wilson (Appears as self)
 2008 – God's Cartoonist: The Comic Crusade of Jack Chick (Appears as self)

See also
 St. Mark's School of Texas § Notable alumni

References

 Beale, Scott "SubGenius Reunion on Puzzling Evidence" (November 27, 2005)
 Gilboa, Netta "Getting Gray With Reverend <mask>g", interview with Rev. <mask>
 Gill, Michael (2005). "Circle of Ash" Cleveland Free Times (July 7, 2005) Feature article includes <mask> discussing Starwood
 Hermes, Will "Slack Is Back" City Pages (January 31, 1996)
 Krassner, Paul (2005)."Life Among the Neopagans" in The Nation, August 24, 2005 (web only). Niesel, Jeff "Slack Is Back: Quit Your Job! Make Waste! The Church of the SubGenius Has Come to Town!" Cleveland Scene (April 6, 2000)

External links
 The Church of the SubGenius
 The Return of High Weirdness By Mail
 Dogma Free America podcast interview with <mask>g

1953 births
Church of the SubGenius
Living people
Writers from Cleveland
People from Fort Worth, Texas
St. Mark's School (Texas) alumni
American SubGenii
American male writers
Critics of religions
People from Glen Rose, Texas

masks:
Ivan Stang
Ivan Stan
Stang
Ivan Stang
Ivan Stan


texts:
<mask>-Sharif, (, Sayyid ‘Imām ash-Sharīf; born 8 August 1950), aka "Dr. Fadl" and Abd Al-Qader Bin 'Abd Al-'Aziz, has been described as a "major" figure "in the global jihad movement." He is said to be "one of Ayman Al-Zawahiri's oldest associates", and his book al-'Umda fi I'dad al-'Udda ("The Essentials of Making Ready [for Jihad]"), was used as a jihad manual in Al-Qaeda training camps in Afghanistan. Fadl is reported to be one of the first members of Al Qaeda’s top council. He has recently attacked al-Qaeda and called for a stop to violent jihad activities both in Western and Muslim countries. He is reported to have two wives, with four sons and two daughters between them. Early life and education

According to Human Rights Watch, Sharif was born in 1950, in the southern Egyptian province of Beni Suef seventy-five miles south of Cairo. His father was a headmaster in Beni Suef.Sharif studied the Quran, and was a hafez (i.e. he had memorized the Quran) by time he finished sixth grade. At fifteen, the Egyptian government enrolled him in a boarding school in Cairo for exceptional students. At 18 he entered medical school, and began preparing for a career as a plastic surgeon, specializing in burn injuries. He has been described as being "pious and high-minded, prideful, and rigid" at that time. It was while studying medicine at Cairo University in the 1970s that al-Sharif met Ayman Al-Zawahiri. In 1977, Zawahiri asked al-Sharif to join his group.According to al-Sharif, Zawahiri misrepresenting himself as a delegate from a group that was advised by Islamic scholars, when in fact Zawahiri was the group's emir and was not guided or advised by clerical authorities. Al-Sharif did not join Zawahiri's group. Egyptian Islamic Jihad
Following the 1981 assassination of the President of Egypt, Anwar Sadat – who had signed a peace treaty with Israel two years earlier – thousands of Egyptian Islamists were rounded up. These included Zawahiri, who was charged with smuggling weapons, but not Al-Sharif who fled the country, was tried in absentia, and convicted. Al-Sharif left Egypt for the UAE in 1982, where he worked as a doctor. He then resided in Pakistan for few weeks before leaving for Saudi Arabia, and then went back to Pakistan again, where he worked for a Kuwaiti Red Crescent hospital in Peshawar. In Pakistan Sharif worked with Ayman al-Zawahiri to rebuild Egyptian Islamic Jihad in exile.In the mid-eighties, Sharif is thought to have become Egyptian Islamic Jihad’s emir, or chief. Al-Sharif denies this, saying that his role was merely one of offering "Sharia guidance." Zawahiri, "whose reputation had been stained by his prison confessions", handled "tactical operations." Al-Sharif impressed other jihadis with his encyclopedic knowledge of the Koran and the Hadith. According to one source, al-Sharif stayed in the background, “Ayman was the one in front, but the real leader was [al-Sharif, aka] Dr. Fadl." The Essential Guide for Preparation
In Peshawar, <mask>-Sharif (aka Fadl) wrote a text for jihadis to "school them in the proper way to fight battles" and preached that the "real objective was not victory over the Soviets but martyrdom and eternal salvation".This work, "The Essential Guide for Preparation," appeared in 1988 and became "one of the most important texts in the jihadis' training". The "Guide" begins with the premise that jihad is the natural state of Islam. Muslims must always be in conflict with nonbelievers, Fadl asserts, resorting to peace only in moments of abject weakness. Because jihad is, above all, a religious exercise, there are divine rewards to be gained. He who gives money for jihad will be compensated in Heaven, but not as much as the person who acts. The greatest prize goes to the martyr. Every able-bodied believer is obligated to engage in jihad, since most Muslim countries are ruled by infidels who must be forcibly removed, in order to bring about an Islamic state."The way to bring an end to the rulers' unbelief is armed rebellion," the "Guide" states. Some Arab governments regarded the book as so dangerous that anyone caught with a copy was subject to arrest. In 1989, bin Laden moved from Afghanistan to Sudan along with Zawahiri and most members of Egyptian Islamic Jihad. <mask>-Sharif, who was finishing "what he considered his masterwork, The Compendium of the Pursuit of Divine Knowledge", agreed to go at the urging of Al-Zawahiri. Time in Sudan
"On September 10, 1993, al-Sharif took his wife and family to Sudan, where he was received on arrival by Ayman al-Zawahri, in Khartoum Airport. The relations between the two men, however, deteriorated further during al-Sharif's time in Sudan." Sometime in the early 1990, Al-Zawahiri and Al-Sharif fell out over questions of strategy and tactics.Al-Sharif opposed Islamic Jihad's joining another Islamist group, al-Gama'a al-Islamiyya, in its terror campaign against Egyptian government and foreign tourists in Egypt saying, "this is senseless activity that will bring no benefit." "Al-Sharif believed that violent attacks were futile, and instead advocated slow and steady infiltration into the structure of the state, but the group as a whole decided otherwise." After two unsuccessful bombing attempts "members of Al Jihad demanded that their leader resign. Many were surprised to discover that the emir was Fadl." Al-Sharif  "willingly gave up the post", and Zawahiri became the official leader as well as leader of tactical operations. Before he left Sudan, however, Al-Sharif gave a copy of his finished manuscript to Zawahiri, saying that it could be used to raise money. The Compendium of the Pursuit of Divine Knowledge
Al-Sharif's second book was more than a thousand pages long and its author used the pseudonym Abdul Qader bin Abdul Aziz.It opens with the assertion that: "A man may enter the faith in many ways, yet be expelled from it by just one deed." Despite Al-Sharif's complaints about the al-Gama'a al-Islamiyya bombing campaign, his book defined Islam narrowly and takfir very broadly. Among those who were not only sinners but apostates of Islam and deserving of death, according to Fadl, are the rulers of Egypt and other Arab countries, those who obey them, and those who participate in elections. “The infidel's rule, his prayers, and the prayers of those who pray behind him are invalid," Fadl decrees. His blood may be shed legally by true Muslims. "I say to Muslims in all candor that secular, nationalist democracy opposes your religion and your doctrine, and in submitting to it you leave God’s book behind." Other Muslims who are actually infidels include anyone employed by the government, the police, and the courts, and  anyone who works for peaceful change instead of violent jihad.In addition, those who disagree with these ideas are also heretics and deserve to be killed. According to Fadl, Zawahiri was delighted with the result, saying, “this book is a victory from Almighty God." But Zawahiri also edited the book before publishing it, removing "a barbed critique of the jihadi movement" and specific organizations and individuals – including al-Gama'a al-Islamiyya (the Islamic Group) with whom Zawahiri was attempting to engineer a merger – and changing the title to Guide to the Path of Righteousness for Jihad and Belief. Al-Sharif became furious with Zawahiri when he found this out, refusing to accept his apology and telling Al Hayat, "I do not know anyone in the history of Islam prior to Ayman al-Zawahiri who engaged in such lying, cheating, forgery, and betrayal of trust by transgressing against someone else's book." Leaving Islamic Jihad

In Yemen
Al-Sharif reportedly severed his ties with the Jihad, and devoted his time to his medical work and theological studies. He took his family to Sana'a following the 1994 Yemeni Civil War, then to the mountain town of Ibb, and began working in a local hospital. His son Isma`il insisted his father had by then severed all links with militant groups.He called himself Dr. Abdul Aziz al-Sharif. Arrest and imprisonment
In the wake of the September 11, 2001 attacks on the United States, Al-Sharif was questioned by Yemen’s Political Security Organization, the Yemeni "secret police", while at work as a surgeon at the al-Shiffa Hospital in Ibb Governorate, south of Sana'a, on October 28, 2001. Shortly after he turned himself in. He was held for three years in detention in Sana'a, "without charge, without trial, and without access to an attorney." Criticism of Jihad movement
On 28 February 2004 Al-Sharif was transferred to Egypt. He was eventually transferred to Scorpion Prison, a facility inside Tora Prison where major political figures were held. There, Al-Sharif/Fadl was serving a life sentence, although according to his son his "cell" was a private room with a bath and a small kitchen, refrigerator, and a television.During his imprisonment in Egypt he wrote Wathiqat Tarshid Al-'Aml Al-Jihadi fi Misr w'Al-'Alam ("Document of Right Guidance for Jihad Activity in Egypt and the World", also translated as "Rationalizing Jihad in Egypt and the World"). In it he proclaimed "We are prohibited from committing aggression, even if the enemies of Islam do that." Rationalizing Jihad in Egypt and the World
In November–December 2007 this book/initiative attacking al-Qaeda and calling for a stop to jihad activities both in the West and in Muslim countries, was published

masks:
Sayyed Imam Al
Imam Al
Imam Al


texts:
 in serial form in two Arab dailies, the Kuwaiti Al-Jarida and the Egyptian Al-Masri Al-Yawm. Al-Sharif claims that hundreds of Egyptian jihadists from various factions – including a majority of Islamic Jihad members – had endorsed his position. Lawrence Wright has described it as "undermin[ing] the entire intellectual framework of jihadist warfare." Restrictions on jihad
The book Rationalizing Jihad opens with the premise that "there is nothing that invokes the anger of God and His wrath like the unwarranted spilling of blood and wrecking of property." It defines most forms of terrorism as illegal under Islamic law and restrict the possibility of holy war to extremely rare circumstances.Requirements for the lawful declaration of jihad include:  a place of refuge, adequate financial resources to wage the campaign without resort to stealing or kidnapping, a means of providing for and protecting family members, properly identified enemy to avoiding killing the innocent. The "blowing up of hotels, buildings, and public transportation" is not permitted. In addition permission must be granted by the jihadi's parents, creditors and a qualified Islamic scholar. Al-Sharif warns, "Oh, you young people, do not be deceived by the heroes of the Internet, the leaders of the microphones, who are launching statements inciting the youth while living under the protection of intelligence services, or of a tribe, or in a distant cave or under political asylum in an infidel country. They have thrown many others before you into the infernos, graves, and prisons." Even if a person has met these requirements and is fit and capable, jihad may not be required of him. Isolation from, rather than jihad against, unbelievers is praiseworthy.Also "God permitted peace treaties and cease-fires with the infidels, either in exchange for money or without it – all of this in order to protect the Muslims, in contrast with those who push them into peril," if the enemy is much more powerful than Muslims. Al-Sharif narrows down those who may be targets of jihad. Unjust Muslim rulers are excluded. Fadl quotes prophet Muhammad advising Muslims: "Those who rebel against the Sultan shall die a pagan death." Non-Muslims are not an acceptable target unless they are actively attacking Muslims. "There is nothing in the Sharia about killing Jews and the Nazarenes [Christians], referred to by some as the Crusaders. They are the neighbors of the Muslims ... and being kind to one's neighbors is a religious duty."Foreigners in Muslim countries may actually be Muslims or they may have been invited into the country for work, which is "a kind of treaty" and exempts them from being targets of jihad. To Muslims living in non-Islamic countries eager to wage jihad, Fadl says, I say it is not honorable to reside with people – even if they were nonbelievers and not part of a treaty, if they gave you permission to enter their homes and live with them, and if they gave you security for yourself and your money, and if they gave you the opportunity to work or study, or they granted you political asylum with a decent life and other acts of kindness – and then betray them, through killing and destruction. This was not in the manners and practices of the Prophet. Current jihads
While "terrorizing the enemy is a legitimate duty" Al-Sharif believes "legitimate terror" must follow Islamic law. As for current or recent jihad, "Jihad in Afghanistan will lead to the creation of an Islamic state with the triumph of the Taliban, if God wills." In Palestine, "if it were not for the jihad in Palestine, the Jews would have crept toward the neighboring countries a long time ago," and without jihad in Iraq, "America would have moved into Syria." However the strife between Sunnis and Shiites in the jihad in Iraq is troubling because: "Harming those who are affiliated with Islam but have a different creed is forbidden."Examples of unlawful slaughter include Al Qaeda's terrorist attacks in America, London, and Madrid, which were wrong because they were based on nationality, which is forbidden under Islam. 9/11 attack
Al-Sharif criticizes the hijackers of 9/11 on the grounds that they "betrayed the enemy," because the visas to the U.S. they received were a kind of contract of protection. The followers of bin Laden entered the United States with his knowledge, and on his orders double-crossed its population, killing and destroying. The Prophet — God's prayer and peace be upon him – said, ‘On the Day of Judgment, every double-crosser will have a banner up-proportionate to his treachery.' He also criticizes the attack for the retaliation it brought forth

People hate America, and the Islamist movements feel their hatred and their impotence. Ramming America has become the shortest road to fame and leadership among the Arabs and Muslims. But what good is it if you destroy one of your enemy's buildings, and he destroys one of your countries?What good is it if you kill one of his people, and he kills a thousand of yours? ... That, in short, is my evaluation of 9/11. Interview
In what is thought to have been an effort to dispel suspicions that the book did not represent Al-Sharif's true feelings, Muhammad Salah, the Cairo bureau chief of Al Hayat, was allowed into Tora Prison to interview Fadl. The result was published in a six-part series, where Fadl "defended the work as his own and left no doubt of his personal grudge against Zawahiri." In the interview, Fadl labels 9/11 "a catastrophe for Muslims," because Al Qaeda's actions "caused the death of tens of thousands of Muslims—Arabs, Afghans, Pakistanis and others." Criticism of Rationalizing Jihad
According to journalist Lawrence Wright, "Jihadist publications were filled with condemnations of Fadl's revisions." Some critics include Hani al-Sibai, a London-based Egyptian political refugee who runs the Almaqreze Centre for Historical Studies, Muhammad Khalil al-Hukayma, leader of the al-Qaeda in Egypt group.Al-Zawahiri himself replied to al-Sharif in a nearly two hundred pages long "letter," which appeared on the Internet in March 2008. According to Diaa Rashwan, an analyst for the Al Ahram Centre for Political and Strategic Studies, in Cairo, it was "the first time in history" that al-Qaeda leadership "have responded in this way to internal dissent." In countering Al-Sharif, Al-Zawahiri contends that "we have the right to do to the infidels what they have done to us. We bomb them as they bomb us, even if we kill someone who is not permitted to be killed." He compares the 9/11 attack to the 1998 American bombing of a pharmaceutical plant in Sudan: "I see no difference between the two operations, except that the money used to build the factory was Muslim money and the workers who died in the factory's rubble [a single night watchman] were Muslims, while the money that was spent on the buildings that those hijackers destroyed was infidel money and the people who died in the explosion were infidels." Al-Zawahiri denies that by attacking a country which gave them visas the 9/11 attackers were "betrayed the enemy," saying, "even if the contract is based on international agreements, we are not bound by these agreements." He denies the attacks on New York, London and Madrid were un-Islamic targeting of nationalities saying "The writer speaks of violations of the Sharia, such as killing people because of their nationality, skin color, hair color, or denomination.This is another example of making accusations without evidence." Rather than conducting terror attacks that bring devastating retaliation, "the Islamic mujahid movement was not defeated, by the grace of God; indeed, because of its patience, steadfastness, and thoughtfulness, it is headed toward victory." Zawahiri denies Muslims living in non-Islamic countries are treated fairly, pointing out that in France, Muslim girls are forbidden to wear hijab to school, that Muslim men are prevented from marrying more than one wife, and from beating their wives, as allowed by the Sharia (according to Zawahiri). The kidnapping or killing of tourists by jihadis has not been unIslamic it has been done to send a message to their home countries (this is an opinion stated as fact): "the mujahideen don't kidnap people randomly ... We don't attack Brazilian tourists in Finland, or those from Vietnam in Venezuela." Zawahiri also complains of a double standard when Palestinian organizations are not criticized for the same tactics and problems that Al-Sharif criticizes other jihadis. Why does al-Qaeda suffer from infighting? "Why don't you ask Hamas the same thing?"Zawahiri demands. "Isn't this a clear contradiction?" Zawahiri concedes Al Jihad has failed to overthrow the Egyptian government, then adds, "Neither has the eighty-year-old jihad kicked the occupier out of Palestine. If it is said that the jihad in Egypt put a halt to tourism and harmed the economy, the answer is that jihad in Palestine resulted in the siege of Gaza." Al-Zawahiri's book has been published in French, in September 2008, by Editions Milelli ()

References

Sources
Egypt's Jihad Group leader wants end to violence
Violence won't work: how author of 'jihadists' bible' stirred up a storm

See also
Al Qaeda's Dissident Foreign Policy December 2009

Living people
Egyptian al-Qaeda members
20th-century Muslim scholars of Islam
Cairo University alumni
Egyptian expatriates in Pakistan
1950


texts:
<mask> (; July 26, 1940 – July 18 or 19, 1969) was an American secretary, and one of the campaign workers for U.S. Senator Robert F. Kennedy's 1968 presidential campaign, a close team known as the "Boiler Room Girls". In 1969, she died in a car accident on Chappaquiddick Island, while being driven by U.S. Senator Ted Kennedy. Early life and education
Kopechne was born in Wilkes-Barre, Pennsylvania, although she is sometimes described as being from nearby Forty Fort, Pennsylvania. She was the only child of <mask>, an insurance salesman, and Gwen (née Jennings), a homemaker. Kopechne was of part Polish heritage through her father.Her grandfathers both worked as coal miners in Luzerne County, Pennsylvania. Her family history in the Wyoming Valley area of northeastern Pennsylvania goes back 250 years on her maternal side. When Kopechne was an infant, her family moved to Berkeley Heights, New Jersey. She was raised Catholic and attended parochial schools. She graduated with a degree in business administration from Caldwell College for Women in 1962. Career
Kopechne was inspired by President <mask>. Kennedy's inaugural command "Ask what you can do for your country". After graduation, Kopechne moved to Montgomery, Alabama, for a year at the Mission of St. Jude, which participated in the Civil Rights Movement.She also taught at Montgomery Catholic High School. She taught business classes in typing and shorthand, and was an advisor to the school newspaper. One former student recalled her as
"a petite strawberry blonde with pep in her step. She had confidence and a zest for life that was intriguing. ... She was humble and kind, and stood firm in her beliefs. ... Tough, but fun in the classroom, creating speed challenges, expecting accuracy, and rewarding generously." By 1963, Kopechne relocated to Washington, D. C., to work as secretary for United States Senator George Smathers (D-FL).She joined the secretarial staff of Senator Robert F. Kennedy (D-NY), following his election in November 1964. For that office, she worked as a secretary to the senator's speechwriter, and as a legal secretary to one of his legal advisers. Kopechne was a loyal worker. Once, during March 1967, she stayed up all night at Kennedy's Hickory Hill home, to type a major speech against the Vietnam War, while the senator and his aides such as Ted Sorensen made last-minute changes to it. She enthusiastically played on the Kennedy office softball team, playing catcher. During the 1968 U.S. presidential election, Kopechne helped with the wording of Kennedy's March speech that announced his presidential candidacy. During his campaign, she worked as one of the Boiler Room Girls; the affectionate nickname given to six young women whose office area was in a hot, loud, windowless location in Kennedy's Washington campaign headquarters.They were vital in tracking and compiling data and intelligence on how Democratic delegates from various states were intending to vote; Kopechne's responsibilities included Pennsylvania. Kopechne and the other staffers were knowledgeable politically, and were chosen for their ability to work skillfully for long, hectic hours on sensitive matters. They talked daily with field managers, and also helped distribute policy statements to strategic newspapers. She has been described as hero-worshiping the senator. Kopechne was devastated emotionally by the assassination of Robert F. Kennedy in June 1968. After working briefly for the Kennedy proxy campaign of George McGovern, she said that she could not return to work on Capitol Hill, saying: "I just feel Bobby's presence everywhere. I can't go back because it will never be the same again."But as her father later said, "Politics was her life". In September 1968, she was hired by Matt Reese Associates, a Washington, D. C., firm that helped establish campaign headquarters and field offices for politicians, and was one of the first political consulting companies. In the fall elections of 1968, Kopechne did work on the re-election campaign of Senator <mask>. Clark, Jr. (D-PA), who eventually lost. She was also assigned to recruit volunteers in Colorado for former Governor Stephen McNichols's run for the Senate against incumbent Senator Peter H. Dominick (R). McNichols lost his run, and Kopechne returned to Washington, D. C. By mid-1969, she had completed work for the eventually successful mayoral campaign of Thomas J. Whelan in Jersey City, New Jersey. She was on her way to a successful professional career; one of the political professionals who worked with her in Jersey City characterized her as "an exceptionally hard-working and skillful professional who knew her craft". Kopechne lived with three other women in the Washington neighborhood of Georgetown.She was a fan of the Boston Red Sox, and of fellow Polish-American Carl Yastrzemski. She was a devout Roman Catholic, with a demure, serious, "convent school" demeanor, and rarely drank much. Death

On July 18, 1969, Kopechne attended a party on Chappaquiddick Island, off the east coast of Martha's Vineyard, Massachusetts. The celebration was in honor of the dedicated work of the Boiler Room Girls, and was the fourth such re-union of Robert Kennedy campaign workers. Robert's surviving brother, Senator Ted Kennedy, was there. Kopechne reportedly left the party with Kennedy at 11:15 p.m.; according to his account, he had offered to drive her to catch the last ferry back to Edgartown, where she was staying. She did not tell her close friends at the party that she was leaving, and she left her purse and keys behind.Kennedy drove the 1967 Oldsmobile Delmont 88 off a narrow, unlit bridge, which lacked guardrails and was not on the route to Edgartown. The vehicle landed on its roof in Poucha Pond. Kennedy extricated himself from the vehicle and survived, but neglected to inform authorities until the next day of the accident and his inability to rescue Kopechne. Assistant Medical examiner Donald Mills signed a death certificate, listing cause of death as accidental drowning. A private funeral for Kopechne was held at St. Vincent's Roman Catholic Church in Plymouth, Pennsylvania, on July 22, 1969. The service was attended by Kennedy, his wife <mask>, his sister-in-law Ethel, and hundreds of onlookers. Kopechne was buried in St. Vincent's Cemetery in Larksville, Pennsylvania, in the parish cemetery on the side of Larksville Mountain.She was among the fifth generation of her family interred in that cemetery. The exact time and cause of Kopechne's death is not positively known, due to conflicting witness testimony at the January 1970 inquest, and lack of an autopsy. Kennedy claimed the accident occurred shortly after he left the party at 11:15p.m. on July 18. But part-time Deputy Sheriff Christopher "Huck" Look testified that he saw Kennedy's car, with Kopechne and Kennedy in it, around 12:40a.m. on July 19. <mask>, the fire rescue captain who retrieved the body on July 19, testified he believed that Kopechne stayed alive for up to half an hour in an air pocket, and ultimately suffocated in the submerged vehicle.A petition to exhume the body for autopsy was denied by a Pennsylvania court. Kennedy failed to report the incident to the authorities until the car and Kopechne's body were discovered the next morning. Kopechne's parents said that they learned of their daughter's death from Kennedy, before he informed authorities of his involvement. They learned that Kennedy had been the driver from wire press releases some time later. Aftermath
A week after the incident, Kennedy pleaded guilty to leaving the scene of an accident after causing injury. He received a two-month suspended sentence. On a national television broadcast that night, Kennedy said that he had not been driving "under the influence of liquor", nor had he ever had a "private relationship" with Kopechne.Massachusetts officials pressed for weeks to have Kopechne's body exhumed for an autopsy, but in December 1969, a Pennsylvania judge sided with the parents' request not to disturb her burial site. The Chappaquiddick incident and Kopechne's death became the topic of at least 15 non-fiction books, as well as a novella by <mask> Oates. Even otherwise sympathetic, mainstream biographers believed there were outstanding serious questions about Kennedy's timeline of events that night, specifically his actions following the incident. The quality of the investigation has been scrutinized, particularly whether official deference was given to a powerful and influential politician and his family. The events surrounding Kopechne's death damaged Kennedy's reputation, and are regarded as a major reason why he was never able to mount a successful campaign for President of the United States and essentially chose not to pursue the office. But Kennedy overcame this and some lesser personal scandals to have a very long career as a Senator, and to achieve a lengthy list of major legislative accomplishments. Kennedy expressed remorse over his role in Kopechne's death in his posthumously published memoir, True Compass (2009).But the disparity of the outcomes remained; Kennedy biographer Peter Canellos has written of the aftermath: "Every day that he lived was one that Kopechne – a talented woman with political interests of her own – would not. It seemed cosmically unfair that he should have a second act when she couldn't even complete her first." Kopechne's parents received a $141,000 settlement from Kennedy's insurance company. They subsequently moved to Swiftwater, Pennsylvania. On the 25th anniversary of her death, in 1994, they said that Kennedy had never apologized directly to them over his role in it, but that other members of the Kennedy family had written letters to them. Their only child gone, they never felt that justice had really been done in the case. Kopechne's father died in a nursing home in East Stroudsburg, Pennsylvania, in 2003.Her mother died in a nursing home in Plains Township, Luzerne County, Pennsylvania, in 2007. Legacy
In 2015, two cousins of Kopechne's in Pennsylvania self-published the book Our Mary Jo, which sought to emphasize the influence of her life, rather than discuss Kennedy or Chappaquiddick. It also includes some of the hundreds of condolence letters that Kopechne's parents received. Because Kopechne had been a strong believer in education and was deeply Catholic, family members started a scholarship fund in Kopechne's name at nearby Misericordia University. In 2017, Kopechne was portrayed by actress Kate Mara in <mask>'s film Chappaquiddick. Mara gives Kopechne a sympathetic interpretation, although much of the film takes place after her death. A full biography, Before Chappaquiddick: The Untold Story of <mask> Kopechne (2020), was written by William C. Kashatus and published by Potomac Books.Kashatus has said that he spent more than a decade researching the work, inspired by Kopechne as an exemplar of the culture of the Wyoming Valley area,
"where the people have a strong work ethic, very strongly Catholic at that period of time, and they raised their kids to respect themselves, respect other people, and work hard. And she really represented that to me." References

Further reading
Kashatus, William C. Before Chappaquiddick: The Untold Story of <mask> Kopechne and the Kennedy Brothers, Lincoln, NE: Potomac Books, 2020. External links
 FBI files on <mask> Kopechne and Chappaquiddick

1940 births
1969 deaths
20th-century American women
People from Wilkes-Barre, Pennsylvania
American people of Polish descent
Washington, D.C. Democrats
Caldwell University alumni
People from Berkeley Heights, New Jersey
Road incident deaths in Massachusetts
Secretaries
Burials in Pennsylvania
Ted Kennedy
Deaths by drowning
Deaths by drowning in the United States
20th-century Roman Catholics
Catholics from Pennsylvania
Catholics from New Jersey
People from Georgetown (Washington, D.C.)
American political women

masks:
Mary Jo Kopechne
Joseph Kopechne
John F
Joseph S
Joan
John Farrar
Joyce Carol
John Curran
Mary Jo
Mary Jo
Mary Jo