Bigger payoff sought for vet in 1944 POW death

[unhappycamper]

Bigger payoff sought for vet in 1944 POW death
By Rory Marshall - The Associated Press
Posted : Wednesday Dec 5, 2007 10:10:24 EST

SEATTLE — A congressman is asking the secretary of the Army to reconsider the compensation — just $725 — given to a veteran whose conviction more than 60 years ago in a riot-and-lynching case was recently overturned.

The $725 given to Samuel Snow reflects only the Army wages he would have received during the time he spent in prison, when his wages were $50 a month. That, said Rep. Jim McDermott, “is not fair.”

Snow, now 83 and living in Leesburg, Fla., was one of 43 black soldiers who were tried in the 1944 rioting death of an Italian prisoner of war at Fort Lawton in Seattle. POW Guglielmo Olivotto was found hanging on wires on an obstacle course.

Snow and 27 others were found guilty of rioting and sentenced to as many as 25 years in prison.

In late October, the Army’s Board of Corrections of Military Records ruled the trial was “fundamentally unfair and improper.” It said the convictions of Snow and three others whose families petitioned should be overturned, on grounds they were unfairly denied access to their attorneys and investigative records. It also ruled their discharges should be upgraded to honorable, and that they or their survivors be given “all back pay and allowances due as a result.”


Rest of article at: http://www.armytimes.com/news/2007/12/ap_1944compensation_071205/