Sentence Restored for former SLA Member who tried to bomb LAPD

By: CIARAN McEVOY - North County Times wire services | Friday, April 13, 2007 10:55 PM PDT ∞

LOS ANGELES -- A woman who helped members of the urban guerilla group that kidnapped newspaper heiress Patty Hearst and spent years underground had a year restored to her sentence for attempting to blow up LAPD police cars, according to court papers obtained today.

Sara Jane Olson, 60, who once lived in Palmdale, was sentenced to 14 years in prison after pleading guilty in October 2001 to two counts of attempted explosion of a destructive device with intent to commit murder, more than 25 years after she was indicted.

According to the indictment, on Aug. 21, 1975, a large, powerful bomb packed with nails and gunpowder was planted beneath an LAPD squad car parked at an International House of Pancakes restaurant on Sunset Boulevard in Hollywood. A similar device was placed beneath a patrol car the same day at the LAPD's Hollenbeck Division police station. Neither bomb exploded.

Prosecutors believe the bombs were intended to avenge the 1974 deaths of a half-dozen Symbionese Liberation Army members, who were killed in a fire and shootout with police in Watts.

SLA members kidnapped Hearst in 1974.

Olson's friend, Angela Atwood, was in the SLA and died in the shootout. Olson later helped surviving SLA members, and was implicated in the attempted bombings and a bank robbery.

She was on the lam until her June 1999 arrest in St. Paul, Minn, where she had been living under the alias Kathleen Soliah with her husband, an emergency room doctor, and three children.

During her years on the run, she led a law-abiding life, participating in school, church and other community affairs, but was sentenced to 14 years in prison for the attempted car bombing.

In 2003 she pleaded guilty to second-degree murder in connection with the April 21, 1975, shooting death of a customer during a bank robbery in Carmichael, near Sacramento. She is serving a six-year sentence in that case, with the sentences running consecutively, meaning a total sentence of 20 years.

Olson appealed her attempted bombing sentence to the state Board of Prison Terms, which cut a year off her term.

The state Attorney General's Office appealed the board's decision, and yesterday, an appeals court panel ruled a lower court acted improperly when it allowed her to appeal her sentence to the Board of Prison Terms without using the correct court procedures.

The appeals panel ruling means the year was restored to her sentence.

Olson is incarcerated at the Central Women's Facility in Chowchilla.

"Justice was restored by yesterday's ruling by the appeals court," said Bob Baker, president of the Los Angeles Police Protective League, which represents the department's officers. "This case proves that justice delayed is not justice denied. We hope that her admittance of guilt sends a strong message to the public that people who attempt to murder police officers cannot escape justice just because they become a model citizen, raise a family and change their criminal behavior." CNS-04-13-2007 20:53

Former SLA, Sara Jane Olson, Sentence Restored

April 14, 2007 abc news
The former Symbionese Liberation Army fugitive who hid
for years by posing as an ordinary housewife had a
year restored to the sentence she is serving for
trying to bomb police cars.
In 2001 Sara Jane Olson, formerly known as Kathleen
Soliah, pleaded guilty and was sentenced to 14 years
in prison for attempting to bomb police cars in 1975
with the SLA, the group best known for kidnapping
newspaper heiress Patricia Hearst.
The state Board of Prison Terms had reduced Olson's
sentence by a year. But the state Attorney General's
Office appealed that decision and an appeals court
panel restored her full sentence Thursday. It ruled a
lower court had not followed proper procedure when it
allowed Olson to appeal her sentence.
Olson also pleaded guilty in 2003 to second-degree
murder in connection with the 1975 shooting death of a
customer during a bank robbery in Carmichael, near
Sacramento. She is serving six years in that case.
Olson disappeared from California after being charged
in the attempted bombings.
She was caught 24 years later when her minivan was
pulled over by police near her St. Paul, Minn., home.
She had changed her name and was living as a housewife
with a husband and three school-age daughters.