Sara Olson is released!
From the Los Angeles Times
Former SLA member leaves prison
Kathleen Soliah, a former Palmdale resident, served about half of her 12-year term for her role in a plot to blow up LAPD cars. She had been arrested in 1999 while living under an assumed name in Minn
By Joel Rubin
Los Angeles Times Staff Writer
March 21, 2008
Kathleen Soliah, a former member of the radical Symbionese Liberation Army, was released on parole this week from a California women's prison after serving about six years behind bars for her role in a plot to kill Los Angeles police officers by blowing up their patrol cars.
The white-haired convict, who has changed her name to Sara Jane Olson, had been sentenced to 12 years in prison. Like most Calif ornia inmates, Soliah earned credit against her sentence for working while in prison. She served on a maintenance crew that swept and cleaned the main yard of the Central California Women's Facility in Chowchilla, prison officials said.
The 61-year-old Soliah, who was released Monday, must now serve a three-year parole, although prison officials declined to provide the conditions of her release.
Reached at her family's home in Palmdale on Thursday, Soliah refused to comment. Her husband, Dr. Gerald Peterson, who was also at the house, said only that he was "relieved."
Soliah's attorney, Shawn Chapman Holley, said, "We're thrilled she's out and can return to her family. For someone who was not a danger or a threat to society, it was six years too long."
< face="Times" size="3" style="font: 12.0px Times">Los Angeles police see Soliah in far harsher light.
She "attempted to murder LAPD officers by bombing two police cars," said Tim Sands, president of the Police Protective League, which represents the city's 9,300 rank-and-file officers. "She needs to serve her full time in prison for these crimes and does not deserve time off for working in prison. Criminals who attempt to murder police officers should not be able to escape justice simply because they have good lawyers."
The child of a middle-class Palmdale family, Soliah joined the violent band of radicals best known for kidnapping newspaper heiress Patty Hearst in the mid-1970s. She was charged with taking part in a 1975 plan to plant pipe bombs beneath police cars in retaliation for a shootout with Los Angeles police that left six SLA members dead.
She changed her name to Sara Jane Olson, left California and married Peterson, an emergency room physician. The couple lived for a while in Zimbabwe before settling in St. Paul, Minn. Soliah lived the quiet life of a homemaker and mother of three daughters in a Tudor-style home in an upscale neighborhood near the Mississippi River and performed in a local theater's Shakespeare productions.
Soliah's disappearance inadvertently led authorities to Hearst, who had joined the SLA after being kidnapped. Los Angeles detectives who were tracking Soliah raided two San Francisco apartments, where authorities found Hearst and other SLA members..
Soliah's second life came to an abrupt end in 1999 when she was apprehended soon after being featured on TV's "America's Most Wanted." Her case was moving toward trial on Sept. 11, 2001. After the terrorist attacks, Soliah struck a plea deal in the bombing attempt, saying she feared she would not get a fair trial in such an atmosphere.
Prosecutors scoffed at her reasoning, pointing to reams of documents, fingerprints and other evidence they had amassed against her. The deal aborted a trial that had promised high drama -- the saga of a fetching high school pep-squad member turned fugitive -- and a revisiting of the social tumult of the 1970s.
Soliah pleaded guilty to two charges of possessing a destructive device with the intent to murder and also struck a deal in a separate case, in which she pleaded guilty to second-degree murder for participating in a Sacramento bank robbery where another SLA member killed a customer. For the murder conviction, she received a one-year sentence. For the botched bombings, Soliah initially was sentenced to five years and four months, but that term was extended to 12 years by a state prison board after the board designated her a serious offender.
Inmate W94197 reported for work in the prison yard shortly after 8 each morning. She earned 24 cents an hour emptying trash cans and tidying up. Soliah chafed under her placement in the security group "Close A," among the most intensely supervised inmates, who are denied privileges and required to be counted seven times a day. In interviews and letters sent to The Times, she said other inmates often confronted her, with one saying she was rumored to be a member of Al Qaeda. Peterson visited about 10 times a year, bringing at least one of the couple's three daughters each time. Prison rules allowed one kiss and one hug at the start of each visit and a second at the end.
Soliah had no discipline problems while in prison, according to Terry Thornton, a spokeswoman for the California Department of Corrections and Rehabilitation. While on parole, she must remain in Los Angeles County, T hornton said, but has submitted a request to be allowed to live elsewhere -- presumably Minnesota, where her husband lives.
Sara Jane Olson released from prison
Friday, March 21, 2008
(03-20) 23:50 PDT San Francisco -- Former Symbionese Liberation Army member Sara Jane Olson, who hid for years by posing as an ordinary housewife, was released from prison Thursday after serving time for attempted murder and second-degree murder in two separate cases, authorities said.
Olson, 61, formerly known as Kathleen Soliah, walked out of the Central Women's Facility in Chowchilla, prisons spokesman Bill Sessa said.
For almost 24 years, Olson was one of the nation's most sought-after fugitives - she disappeared in 1975, the same year two Los Angeles police cars were bombed. She changed her name from Kathleen Soliah and, over the years, lived as a mild-mannered Midwestern housewife. She married a Minnesota physician and became a celebrated cook and soccer mom in the St. Paul area.
She was captured in June 1999 on charges of planting the police car bombs. She subsequently pleaded guilty to attempted murder charges for the attempted car bombings. In 2004, a Sacr amento judge vacated the 14-year sentence for the car bombs given to Olson after ruling that the state Board of Prison Terms did not independently review her case upon sentencing her in 2002 for the bombings. After a review, her sentence was reduced by one year.
Olson was also serving time for murder.
In 2002, Olson had pleaded guilty to second-degree m urder for her role in the 1975 SLA robbery of the Sacramento area bank in which customer Myrna Opsahl, 42, was shot and killed. She received a sentence of six years.
In her 2002 probation report, police said Olson emerged as the leader of the SLA after a 1974 fire and shootout in Los Angeles in which six of the nine members of the SLA died.
Back when sh e was Kathy Soliah, Olson was president of the Palmdale High School Pep Club in Los Angeles County. Her mother said in an interview in 1975 that her oldest daughter was "into everything - Girl Scouts, the Rainbows, Sunday school."
Chronicle news services contributed to this report. E-mail Steve Rubenstein at srubenstein@sfchronicle.com.
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6 comments:
Enough is enough she needs to be let go NOW. This has been a massive injustice to the American people to have this woman taken from her family for a crime committed by others and prosecuted for the political gains of the elite!
She should have never been in jail much less sent back for some so-called "clerical error".
She participated in a crime that led to the death of an innocent women and planned to murder two cops. Seems that she got off very easy.
She ran away because she knew she was a criminal.
She has to pay for her crimes.
To compare her to real political prisoners is a grave insult to them and ruins your credibility.
Have a nice day.
DEATH PENALTY TO OLSON!
Sara Olson is an absolute PIG and a murderer who should have received life imprisonment.
Because a person can hide for years and become a model citizen, a mother, and etc.....does not change the fact that a women who was a mother an a working woman a wife and a daughter was murdered. put yourselfs in the eyes of the family of the victim, and would you feel enough is enough? She got off easy.....She participated and hid. she knew what she did. U see I was there in chowchilla with her and she still talk all that not of the soccor mom and etc......
AND HER FRIEND PATTY HEART SHOULD HAVE WENT TOOOOOOOO
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