Anti-War Radical Pleads Guilty to 1970 Raid on U.S. Armory

BOSTON — The former anti-war radical who emerged from hiding last week to take responsibility for her past pleaded guilty Friday to raiding a government armory 23 years ago.

Katherine Ann Power, 44, who purportedly was trying to help create a revolutionary army, pleaded guilty in U.S. District Court to federal charges of theft of government property from a National Guard armory in Newburyport on Sept. 20, 1970.

Assistant U.S. Atty. Brian Kelly said Power and several accomplices who were caught and convicted long ago stole a pickup truck, military radios, 400 rounds of ammunition and devices for setting off explosives.

In exchange for the guilty plea, the government said it would recommend that Power serve a five-year prison term rather than the maximum of 10 years.

In addition, the government agreed to dismiss federal bank robbery charges stemming from a holdup in Philadelphia nearly three weeks before the Newburyport theft. Power drove a getaway car in that crime, which netted $6,200, authorities said.

She also drove a getaway car three days after the armory raid when she participated in a Boston bank robbery in which a police officer was killed.

Power, who became one of the nation’s longest-sought female fugitives after that crime, surfaced last week to plead guilty in state court to bank robbery and manslaughter. She will be sentenced Oct. 6 on those charges, and the U.S. attorney’s office said it will recommend that her federal sentence run concurrently with whatever she receives in state court.