Biography
Isidore Begun was a Russian-born American educator, teachers' union activist, and Communist Party organizer in the Bronx. Born on December 3, 1903, he immigrated to the United States as an infant, later earned a master's degree from Columbia University, and worked as a teacher in New York City's public schools. He became active in the New York Teachers Union and served as head of the Communist Party's Bronx County organization.
FBI agents arrested Begun and sixteen other New York Communist Party officials on June 20, 1951, charging them with conspiring to advocate the forcible overthrow of the United States government under the Smith Act. Begun was initially held while attempting to raise bail and was released by June 29, 1951, after roughly ten days in custody.
After the government challenged and invalidated bonds supplied by the Civil Rights Congress Bail Fund in July, Begun was returned to federal custody. He remained jailed into August and was one of the final two defendants unable to obtain replacement bail. He was eventually released on $10,000 privately furnished bail in mid-August 1951; the exact date has not been established, so it is not recorded here.
Begun went to trial with the other New York defendants in 1952. On September 30, 1952, Federal Judge Edward J. Dimock DIRECTED A VERDICT OF ACQUITTAL for Begun and Simon W. Gerson, finding that the prosecution had presented insufficient evidence against them. He was never convicted and served no sentence. The thirteen remaining defendants were convicted and sentenced; the federal appellate decision expressly notes that two defendants had been acquitted at the close of the government's case.
An earlier version of this record stated that he was convicted in the 1952 second-string Foley Square Smith Act trial and sentenced in January 1953 to two years. Neither the conviction nor the sentence happened.
Begun died on October 21, 1988.
