Wilhelm Reich Trial: 1956
secondary literature · 2026
LINK
SUMMARY
A reference-encyclopedia trial account (part of the 'Great American Trials'/'Notable Trials and Court Cases, 1954 to 1962' series), byline Bernard Ryan Jr., fetched directly. Gives trial-level detail not in the FDA's own Notice of Judgment record (which covers only the civil injunction, not the later criminal contempt trial): the May 3, 1956 trial date before Judge George C. Sweeney in Portland, Maine; witness testimony including Ilse Ollendorff's statement that accumulator income in the four months after the injunction was unchanged from before it; the jury's 20-minute deliberation and guilty verdict; sentences (Reich two years, Silvert a year and a day, the Foundation fined $10,000); and Reich's November 3, 1957 death at Lewisburg with the autopsy finding of 'myocardial insufficiency with sudden heart failure.' Two verbatim quotations are logged in a verify-quotes block in the grounding log.
NOTES
A trial-reference-encyclopedia account of the 1956 criminal contempt trial, byline Bernard Ryan Jr., fetched directly from law.jrank.org. Supplies detail the FDA’s own civil-injunction Notice of Judgment record does not cover (the contempt trial itself is a separate proceeding): the May 1956 trial date and presiding judge, witness testimony on continued accumulator income after the injunction, the jury verdict and sentences, and the November 1957 death and autopsy finding at Lewisburg federal penitentiary. Cross-checked against the Wilhelm Reich Museum’s own biography (same sentence and death-date figures) and against the CourtListener record for the appeal (239 F.2d 134, same parties and citation).