Biography
Thomas William Manning, a Boston-born former Marine, co-founded the United Freedom Front with Raymond Luc Levasseur. Alongside the group's bombings and bank robberies, he was convicted of killing New Jersey State Police trooper Philip Lamonaco in a 1981 traffic-stop shootout. He evaded capture until April 1985, was convicted in the federal conspiracy and bombing cases and sentenced to life for the trooper's death in 1987, became a noted prison artist, and died in custody in West Virginia in 2019, about a year before a scheduled release.
Tom Manning was a Boston-born Vietnam veteran (Marine Corps) and former prisoner who became a co-founder of the Sam Melville/Jonathan Jackson Unit and the United Freedom Front. Arrested April 24, 1985 in Norfolk, Virginia and convicted in 1986 in Brooklyn federal court of bombings and bank robberies, receiving 53 years. In 1987 he was convicted by a New Jersey jury of the December 21, 1981 fatal shooting of NJ State Trooper Philip Lamonaco during a roadside stop on I-80 and sentenced to life plus 30 years. A noted prison artist, he died of natural causes in federal prison in Hazelton, West Virginia on July 30, 2019.
