Biography
Jeff Dietrich is a longtime Los Angeles Catholic Worker and and editor of the Catholic Agitator who has been arrested and jailed roughly 40 times during his 50 year long activist career. His notable prison sentences include 6 months in federal prison stemming from a 2001 Vandenberg Air Force Base protest of the National Missile Defense program. A 120 day federal custody sentence following a 2016 anti-nuclear protest and dozens of other jail terms following arrests for civil disobedience actions.
Birth-date sources
No-jail disposition in separate ICE-van action
The April 2026 Catholic Agitator’s individual Jeff Dietrich Update states that he received no jail time and no fine for blocking an ICE van at the downtown Los Angeles Metropolitan Detention Center. This is a reported court disposition in the separate immigration-enforcement civil-disobedience action, not the 2003 antiwar imprisonment or the 2024 Vandenberg citation. The newsletter does not print the action, arrest or court-hearing day, an exact statutory charge, a plea, or whether any earlier pretrial detention occurred. No imposed jail sentence is therefore not used as proof of zero total lifetime custody or as a new release date. Existing separately sourced cases and their counters remain unchanged. The adjacent photograph is captioned only as after Jeff’s court appearance; no other group member is identified from appearance.
Catholic Agitator, April2026, volume56no2, printed page3 and spread4-5 (original PDF pages4-5).
An earlier 1983 jail stay distinguished from its six-month sentence
In its discussion of Judge Roosevelt Robinson, the December 16, 1983 report says the judge had released Jeff Dietrich earlier that year after thirty days of a six-month sentence. The underlying case was already more than a year old. This supplies actual completed service for an earlier 1983 episode but no exact arrest, sentence, admission or release day; it is not the existing 2003 case and the nominal six months are not six months actually served.
The Nuclear Resister No22, December 16, 1983, original page 5.
A separate book review in the March 9, 1983 Nuclear Resister describes Dietrich and fellow Catholic Worker Kent Hoffman as actually serving fifty-nine days following an October 1979 Military Arms Bazaar protest, after their six-month sentences were commuted. This is a separate earlier action from Dietrich’s 1983 Rockwell imprisonment; the action month does not establish later jail endpoints.
The Nuclear Resister No.15, March 9, 1983, PDF pages 16.
The January 1983 report distinguishes Dietrich’s same-day December 22 detention and release from his January 7 readmission on the erroneous court warrant.
Dietrich’s April 10, 2026 protest arrest led to a June 17 guilty plea and $60 fine; no jail term was imposed.
His first-person account in The Witness, May 1991, documents a separate detention following the February 1991 Los Angeles Federal Building antiwar protest. The editor records his April 8, 1991 sentencing and credit for time served; the physical release day is not supplied. Source.
Dennis Apel’s court update individually names Catherine Morris, Jeff Dietrich, Frank Cordaro and Dimitri Kadiev as pleading guilty to trespass at their November 21, 2024 federal arraignment for the August 10 Vandenberg action. All four received two years of unsupervised probation, with no prison term or fine, and were allowed to return to the designated protest area. This update does not assign that outcome to the fifth August arrestee, Nuri Ronaghe.
Source: The Nuclear Resister, report 58.
The Los Angeles Catholic Worker reported that Jeff Dietrich, David Omondi and Barbara Robinson were arrested at the downtown federal building on August 28, 2013 during an action supporting Chelsea Manning. They were charged with misdemeanor failure to disperse and blocking an entrance, and released an hour later. The account establishes no jail admission or later verdict; the announced October 2 court date was prospective.
The May 2, 2016 headline reports that Jeff Dietrich began his prison sentence that day, following the August 8, 2015 Vandenberg action. At an April 21 status hearing, Dietrich and Dennis Apel refused to cooperate with probation imposed March 17 for reasons of conscience, and each received 120 days. Dietrich’s four-month imposed term is not treated as a measured completed stay; the actual physical release date and full duration remain unknown. The Nuclear Resister, May 2, 2016.
The contemporary release update reports that Jeff Dietrich and Dennis Apel were released August 26 and September 2,2016 respectively after their Vandenberg protest imprisonment. Dietrich’s own prison letters are individually identified in the same issue. His previously documented May 2 admission and August 26 departure span 116 elapsed days; the issue also describes his completed stay as four months. His other cases remain separate. Source: The Nuclear Resister No.182, September 6,2016, printed pages1 and7.
The August 2013 compilation names this Los Angeles Catholic Worker participant among six arrested after carrying a Hiroshima–Never Again banner into Vandenberg Air Force Base on August 9, 2013. They were cited for trespassing and released an hour and a half later at Ryon Park in Lompoc. The Nuclear Resister, contemporary source report 632.
Additional documented custody
1979, Anaheim Military Arms Bazaar: Dietrich was arrested in October and received a six-month sentence. He spent 59 days in Orange County custody, first in the county jail and later at the county farm, before the judge reduced the term. His November and December letters document confinement, but do not establish the exact first admission or release day. Dietrich’s prison letters, The Sun, July 1983; The Nuclear Resister, March 9, 1983, PDF page 16.
Vandenberg missile-defense protest: In an interview-based report, Dietrich described entering the base in June 2000 and pleading guilty. Later reporting identifies six months actually served in 2001 for entering Vandenberg. The exact admission and release dates, including an August start, are not established. Front Line USA, printed pages 50–51; Santa Barbara Independent, December 20, 2007.
2006, Feinstein office antiwar protest: Dietrich was arrested March 20 and held overnight. On August 18 the court increased an initial ten-day sentence to 30 days. The later report says he was released after 36 hours in lockup following sentencing; this was not 30 days served. The Nuclear Resister No. 141, April 20, 2006, page 4, and No. 143, September 20, 2006, Senator Diane Feinstein case update.
2016, Vandenberg probation case: The 120-day sentence was imposed April 21 following the August 8, 2015 trespass action. May 2 to August 26 amounts to 116 elapsed days. The federal Bureau of Prisons lists him under Robert Jefferson Dietrich, register number 81196-012, and records release from MDC Los Angeles on August 26, 2016. Los Angeles Catholic Worker report, May 2, 2016; The Nuclear Resister No. 182, September 6, 2016; BOP Inmate Locator.
Dietrich reported two years in jails and prisons across more than forty arrests in his introduction to the reissued Reluctant Resister. That overall total includes the separately documented stays and is not added to them. Catholic Agitator, April 2023, page 1.
