Biography
Black liberation organizer, December 12th Movement field marshal, and the federal government's named 'ringleader' of the New York 8+ federal RICO prosecution — a 1984-85 case widely understood as a follow-on to the post-Brink's wave of Black liberation prosecutions. Arrested in a predawn raid on October 17-18, 1984 by roughly 500 FBI/NYPD Joint Terrorism Task Force agents and charged with conspiring to break Sundiata Acoli out of federal prison, carry out armed bank expropriations, and bomb federal buildings. Held without bail in federal custody under the just-enacted 1984 Bail Reform Act until Judge David N. Edelstein granted him release on $500,000 bond — about three and a half months in MCC New York. The Second Circuit affirmed his release in April 1985 (United States v. Chimurenga, 760 F.2d 400). Trial began May 13, 1985 in the Southern District of New York. The August 1985 jury acquitted Chimurenga and his co-defendants of every RICO and conspiracy count and convicted him only on minor weapons-possession and false-identification counts to which the defense had not contested. He was sentenced in mid-January 1986. After release he became a longtime field marshal of the December 12th Movement and a leading New York City organizer until his death on May 7, 2019.