Biography
Sam Povff was born in Poltava, Russia (present-day Ukraine). Immigrated to the United States in 1910.
An anarchist since age 17. Arrested in 1899 for revolutionary activities but released. Later claimed he participated in a mutiny at the Kronstadt naval base and was sentenced to 13 years’ internal exile in Siberia, from which he escaped.
In the United States he briefly belonged to an anarchist organization in New York, then moved to the West Coast where he used numerous aliases and supported himself through apparently politically motivated theft. Arrested 1911 in Huntington, Oregon for larceny (receiving a two-year sentence); circa 1912 in Stockton for burglary (two years in San Quentin State Prison); and 1914 in Los Angeles for highway robbery (a six-year sentence, of which he served four years and two months). Arrested again in Portland in 1919 for attempted robbery of moonshine sellers, explaining “They had no right to poison the working class people. I think I had a right to rob them.” Immigration authorities called him “a most reprehensible and undesirable character.” Deported to Russia December 17, 1922.
1920s custody review: The fifty-month duration previously attached to this deportation case came from four years and two months served on an earlier 1914 Los Angeles conviction. It has been removed from the1922 deportation case. Admission and release dates for the intervening criminal episodes remain unresolved; no dates are calculated from sentence lengths.
