Pat Gros

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Pat Gros (born Patricia Helen Rowbottom in 1948) is an American political activist who with her partner

harboring a fugitive, namely her partner. In 1989, the FBI brought further charges of racketeering and seditious conspiracy against Gros, Levasseur and another UFF member. This trial collapsed and Gros, who was already released on probation
, faced no further charges.

Early life

Patricia Helen Rowbottom was born December 11, 1948, in

Tom Manning and Carol Manning.[2] She and Levasseur became lovers and they left SCAR in August 1974 to set up a radical bookshop.[2] Gros and Levasseur were friends with the author Agnes Bushell, who later used their exploits as the basis for her book called Local Deities.[3]

Underground

Gros, Levasseur and the Mannings formed the revolutionary group the Sam Melville / Jonathan Jackson unit, named for two militants; later they renamed the group the

independence for Puerto Rico.[2][4] In January 1976, Gros gave birth to the first of three daughters she would have with Levasseur whilst they lived underground. They frequently moved house to evade capture by the authorities, living in towns across the states of Maine, Connecticut, New Hampshire, New York and Vermont. In each new location, the gang took up a new false identity; Gros would look after her children and find work as a waitress or a temp, whilst her partner scouted locations for robberies and bombings. Like Carol Manning, who also had children whilst underground, Gros came to see bringing up kids as more important than carrying out direct action.[2]

On April 22, 1976, the UFF made their first bombing at the

First National Bank of Boston in Revere, Massachusetts on July 4, 1976 (marking the United States Bicentennial).[2]

After being arrested with

state trooper Philip Lamonaco was shot dead by either Tom Manning or the new UFF member Richard Williams. Levasseur had not been present but knew that whole group would come under extra scrutiny, so he ordered another move, this time to Yonkers, New York.[2] After the FBI became aware that Gros and Levasseur had children, their photographs were added to the wanted posters; this move was condemned by Psychology Today.[5] In later testimony, Williams admitted that after Lamonaco's killing it had become harder to remain safely underground.[6] Over the course of a decade, the UFF had carried out around 19 bombings and stolen at least $900,000 from banks.[7]

Arrest and trials

A

Grumman Corporation, the JTTF used it to match a false identity presented by Gros when she was involved in a car crash several years earlier to a mailbox currently rented under that name in Columbus, Ohio. The taskforce put the mailbox under surveillance and when Gros checked her mail on November 3, 1984, she was followed to a home in Deerfield, Ohio. The FBI watched as she led them to the other fugitives. Gros, Levasseur and their three children were arrested on November 4. Curzi Laaman, Jan Laaman and Richard Williams were apprehended the same day in Cleveland.[6][9][10] The Mannings fled from their house and stayed underground until the following year, when they were arrested after being traced from the serial numbers on a gun.[10]

The three daughters of Gros and Levasseur were questioned for five hours by the FBI and

harboring a fugitive, namely her husband.[1][9]

In 1989, the FBI brought further charges of racketeering and seditious conspiracy against Gros, Levasseur and Williams.[9] Gros commented "Eight of us are charged with conspiracy to overthrow the US government by the use of force and we never had any Redeye missiles; we had no tanks; no helicopters; and no hundred million dollars."[1] At trial, Gros' lawyer claimed that Levasseur had decided to go underground and therefore left Gros with no choice except to follow him in order to keep her family together.[13] By this point, Gros had already spent three and a half years in jail before being released on probation; the new trial collapsed and she did not receive any additional sentence.[14]

Later life

After her release from prison, Gros participated in the Lynne Stewart Legal Defense Committee, which supported Lynne Stewart.[15] She also contributed five poems to a collection of writings by political prisoners edited by Levasseur and Tim Blunk.[16]

Notes

  1. ^ a b c Staff writer (n.d.). "The women of the Ohio 7". Bulldozer.
  2. ^ a b c d e f g h i Burroughs (2015).
  3. ^ Wilde, Dana (April 16, 2014). "The Maine coast's best novelist you've never heard of". Island Institute. Archived from the original on January 15, 2024. Retrieved January 15, 2024.
  4. ^ Brown (2003), pp. 221, 222.
  5. ProQuest 294469583
    .
  6. ^
    ProQuest 392139972
    .
  7. ^ Pluchinsky (2020), p. 114.
  8. ^ Churchill & VanderWall (1990), p. 316.
  9. ^ a b c Berger (2008), p. 31.
  10. ^ a b Churchill & VanderWall (1990), p. 317.
  11. ^ Churchill & VanderWall (1990), pp. 317, 318.
  12. ProQuest 285441966
    .
  13. ProQuest 294459368
    .
  14. ^ Smith (1994), p. 131.
  15. ProQuest 232300105
    .
  16. ^ Blunk & Levasseur (1990), pp. 65–71.

References

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