The Nation - News from July 6, 1989

A Puerto Rican nationalist sentenced to federal prison for burning an American flag has been freed. Greg Bogdan, a spokesman for the U.S. Bureau of Prisons, confirmed that Carlos Mendoza-Lugo, 36, was freed last week from a prison in Atlanta. Mendoza-Lugo had filed a petition in U.S. District Court seeking release after the U.S. Supreme Court issued a ruling June 21 that burning the flag as a protest is a legal exercise of freedom of speech. Bogdan said the Puerto Rican magistrate who sentenced Mendoza-Lugo to the maximum one year in prison reduced the sentence to seven months, making him eligible for release.