Hugo Pinell

Hugo Pinell

Hugo "Yogi Bear" Pinell (born 1945) is a Nicaraguan prisoner currently incarcerated at Pelican Bay State Prison in California.

Despite maintaining then and now that he is innocent, Pinell, after being repeatedly told he would face the death penalty if he did not confess, eventually pled guilty in 1965, at the age of 19, to assault in connection with the kidnapping and rape of a young woman in San Francisco:

"In 1964, a white woman accused me of rape, assault and kidnap. I was 19 years old. I turned myself into the authorities to clarify the charges against me which I knew to be falsified. The deputies beat me several times because the alleged victim was white, and the Public Defender and the Judge influenced my mother into believing that I would be sentenced to death unless I pled guilty. At their insistence and despite my innocence, I pled guilty to the charge of rape, with the understanding that I would be eligible for parole after 6 months. When I arrived at the California Department of Corrections, I was informed that I had been sentenced to three years to life."

While Pinell was imprisoned in San Quentin State Prison he made contact with revolutionary prisoners such as George Jackson, one of the Soledad Brothers and W.L. Nolen. Both men were African-Americans who, in jail, turned away from a life focused on crime to a life focused on the ideas of social revolution. They both lead a movement to convert their fellow prisoners to the same ideology. Along with their fellow prisoners, they fought for an end to guard brutality and racism, and for prisoner unity.

Pinell has also spent time at the well-known Folsom Prison.