LSPC currently has 13 staff members. Our staff members work on a variety of
projects all supported by our Executive Director.
Dorsey Nunn, Executive Director, has over thirty-five years experience working on prison related issues. He is the Co-Founder of All of Us or None, a project of LSPC started by formerly incarcerated people in 2003. He has been in the forefront of many social justice organizations from their beginnings, including Critical Resistance and the California Coalition for Women Prisoners. Dorsey has received numerous awards including the “Certificate of Special Congressional Recognition” by Nancy Pelosi and the “Senate Certificate of Recognition by Senator Jackie Speier. He is also a recipient of the Fannie Lou Hamer Award from the African-American studies department at UC Berkeley. Dorsey was sentenced to life in the California Department of Corrections when he was 19 years old. He paroled in 1981 and discharged from parole in 1984.
Anna Couey, Development Director, joined the LSPC family in 2009. Anna is responsible for coordinating LSPC’s fundraising, as well as organizing staff and board members in fundraising projects. Anna comes to LSPC with a long history of working to strengthen community power and voice through collaborative art projects, community networking, and participatory research to advance social justice campaigns. As a former Information Activist for the DataCenter she worked on research projects for LSPC/All of Us or None in the formative years. She became actively involved in fundraising as a way to build resources and power in social justice organizations. Anna is also an artist whose work integrates community participation, communications technology and social justice.
Hamdiya Cooks, Administrative Director, has over 25 years of experience working on issues facing women in prison. Having served 20 years in the federal prison system, while incarcerated, Hamdiya led Muslim women prisoners in the struggle to honor their religious practices, including headgear and fasting. She was also a key organizer for Black Culture Workshops at the Federal Correctional Institution in Dublin, CA for over 15 years. At LSPC, Hamdiya is responsible for day to day administrative duties. She is the former director of the California Coalition for Women Prisoners. Hamdiya holds a B.A, degree from Columbia College. She has published an article on “Islam in Prison” in the Prison Legal News and an essay profiling the lives of three women in prison in the book “Schooling the Generations in the Politics of Prison
Carol Strickman, Staff Attorney, serves on our Family Unity Project, which monitors mother-infant prisons, opposes shackling of pregnant prisoners, and advocates for expanded prison visits for incarcerated parents, among other issues. She tracks pending legislation with the Policy Committee, drafts and updates our legal manuals, and works with interns and staff to reply to requests from prisoners and their families. In 2011, she helped lead LSPC’s response to the historic prison hunger strike; she continues to work to oppose solitary confinement through her role on the litigation team with the Center for Constitutional Rights in a recently filed class action suit, Ruiz v. Brown. Before coming to LSPC, Carol worked as a criminal appeals attorney for indigent clients. She graduated from UC Berkeley School of Law (Boalt Hall) in 1977.
Jo Ann Dearman-Seeney, Paralegal, joined LSPC in June 2012. Jo Ann has over 30 years experience working in business and office management and over 10 years experience as a small business entrepreneur. Prior to coming to LSPC she was incarcerated at Valley State Prison for Women for one year. Upon release from VSPW, Reverend Andre Harris informed Jo Ann of an opportunity to become a mentor in her community and become involved with LSPC, an organization really making a difference to inmates and former inmates. After, over 40 years of stress-filled employment Jo Ann has found a position she can be passionately involved in, one that offers a reward that cannot be measured in terms of financial gain. “I have discovered with great satisfaction the meaning of reaching out and giving back,” she explains.
Jo Ann is a single parent with 3 adult children who are her most important inspirations. She attended school in San Francisco and graduated from Healds Business College with a degree in Business Administration and Professional Data Processing. One of her proudest achievements was owning and operating a successful minority owned business featured as an example by the Small Business Association. She intends to pursue a long and passionate length of service with Legal Services for Prisoners with Children.
Manuel La Fontaine II, Northern California Regional Organizer, All of Us or None As a former street organizer (also known as a gang member), a formerly-incarcerated person, and a college graduate, Manuel brings street savvy, along with scholastic aptitude, and incorporates them into his work life to better assist those without voices. Manuel’s passion is to help transform the social, economic, criminal justice, and political system in our society to more equitable, sustainable and inclusive systems. As a grassroots organizer, he works to help build All of Us Or None into a civil rights movement striving towards the full restoration of all civil and human rights for formerly incarcerated people
Linda Evans, All of Us or None Organizer, has been at LSPC since 2003. Linda is a founding member of Pleasanton AIDS Counseling and Education, an inmate-to-inmate AIDS peer counseling organization and the Council Against Racism, a prisoner organization that worked against institutional racism and to lessen racial tensions inside the prison. Linda served 16 years in federal prison for actions against the government. On January 20, 2001, then President Clinton commuted her sentence and she was released. In 2002 she received an Open Society Institute Justice Fellowship to organize formerly incarcerated people. Along with her partner Eve Goldberg, Linda is co-author of the booklet, “The Prison Industrial Complex and the Global Economy. Linda received her B.A. and M.A. in Humanities while she was in prison.
Aaliyah Muhammad, Organizer, has been at LSPC since 2005. She worked as the Intern Coordinator/ Community Liaison position until 2007 when she helped organize the Sacramento Chapter of All of Us or None. Aaliyah and many family members have been affected by the Prison Industrial Complex. She feels taking on the PIC is a “David and Goliath” battle, but the small victories are well worth the fight. Aaliyah travels around the Sacramento area to educate the public about the discrimination former prisoners face coming home from prison. She is currently enrolled in Paralegal Studies at University of Northern California Law School, Sacramento.
Jerry Elster, Organizer, is a formerly incarcerated man from South Central Los Angeles and a proud member of All of Us or None. He holds Associate of Arts degrees in Ministry and General Education. He is a substance abuse counselor and a co-founder of No More Tears, an anti-violence organization. He likes to say that some people go to Penn State; he went to the state pen. There, Jerry transformed himself from being a societal problem to becoming part of the solution. His trials have taught him how essential it is for incarcerated (as well as formerly incarcerated) people to speak in their own voices. A people without a voice are a people without hope. All of Us or None provides both the vehicle and the opportunity for us to be heard. His goal is for the full restoration of his human rights.
Denise Mewbourne, Administrative and Program Support, joined LSPC in April 2013. Prior to that, she spent two years as a prison justice activist doing volunteer work for All of Us or None, Occupy 4 Prisoners, and other organizations. She combines skills as an organizer, artist, editor, and writer with a lifelong commitment to racial justice, and is honored to be a part of that ongoing struggle. She was editor in chief of a multi-ethnic and progressive Oakland-based arts and culture magazine, and has worked as a Theater of the Oppressed facilitator throughout the Bay Area. Denise learned organizing skills from the Challenging White Supremacy workshop, and holds a BA in Creative Writing from San Francisco State University. Currently she co-facilitates Occupy 4 Prisoner’s Human Rights Pen Pal Program, helping connect people of conscience outside with politically active people behind the walls.
Martha Wallner, Communications/ Media Coordinator, joined LSPC in October 2011. After a decade of media policy activism and consulting she’s excited to return to hands-on communications work for social justice organizing. She comes to LSPC with years of progressive media experience as the co-founder of Deep Dish TV, a member of the Paper Tiger TV Collective, the director of Berkeley Community Media and the Grassroots Liaison to the Media & Democracy Coalition. She’s served as a board member with Scribe Video Center (PA) and Media Alliance (CA) and was on the advisory board of the Center for Media Justice and the successful Campaign to Pass the Local Community Radio Act of 2010. She’s an avid student of Afro-Brazilian dance and an active member of the East Bay Meditation Center’s Alphabet Sangha.
Toshio Meronek, Financial/Administrative Assistant, joined LSPC in July of 2012 after working as an active member of the prison abolition group Critical Resistance. While at CR, Toshio edited its newspaper, The Abolitionist. In 2011 and 2012, he was inspired by queer and transgender ex-prisoners and activists around the country, as he traveled and spoke as part of the book tour for Captive Genders: Trans Embodiment and the Prison Industrial Complex. Toshio is also a freelance writer focusing on social justice and LGBTQ issues.
Azadeh Zohrabi, Soros Justice Fellow, Azadeh has almost 10 years of experience visiting and advocating for people in California’s prisons. During this time, she has worked on a range of issues including improving the conditions of confinement for pregnant women and limiting the use of solitary confinement in both juvenile and adult institutions. Azadeh recently graduated from UC Hastings College of the Law and was awarded a Soros Justice Fellowship to work with Legal Services for Prisoners with Children on minimizing the use of long term solitary confinement in California. She is the author and co-author of two scholarly articles: Resistance and Repression: The Black Guerrilla Family in Context, and Creating the “Bad Mother”: How the U.S. Approach to Pregnancy in Prisons Violates the Right to be a Mother. Azadeh has been inspired by LSPC’s work long before she even thought about law school and is grateful for the opportunity to work with such experienced, dedicated and passionate advocates.