He's U.S. journalist imprisoned longest in contempt of court

San Fancisco Chronicle

Josh Wolf, a blogger who refused to give a videotape of a San Francisco anarchist protest to a federal grand jury, achieves an unwanted distinction today, when he becomes the longest-imprisoned journalist for contempt of court in U.S. history.

Wolf, 24, is spending his 169th day at the Federal Correctional Institution in Dublin, surpassing the imprisonment of Vanessa Leggett, a Texas freelancer who defied a grand jury's subpoena in 2001 for notes from a book she was writing about a murder case.

Leggett was freed when the grand jury's term expired. The grand jury in Wolf's case, which is investigating an alleged arson attempt on a San Francisco police car, is scheduled to adjourn in July. But a prosecutor said in court papers last month that the term could be extended six months.

U.S. District Judge William Alsup held Wolf in contempt of court in August, denied furloughs for him for the Thanksgiving and Christmas holidays, and turned down his latest bid for freedom in a one-paragraph order Jan. 30 without holding a hearing.