Soliah Supporters Raise $1 Million to Pay Her Bail

Supporters of Kathleen Ann Soliah have raised $1 million in cash to bail out the former Symbionese Liberation Army fugitive who was arrested after living for years as Sara Jane Olson in Minnesota, her lawyers said Monday.

“I don’t know anyone else who could have raised this much money this quickly,” said attorney Stuart Hanlon. “People in Minnesota love this woman. She was a totally committed person who helped her community.”

Hanlon, who is representing Soliah with attorney Susan B. Jordan, said a lawyer from Minnesota was flying to Los Angeles with a check to post bail when Soliah appears in court today. Soliah’s attorneys said that friends, family and neighbors of the defendant had taken out lines of credit on their homes and borrowed on IRA accounts to come up with the cash needed to win Soliah’s release from jail.

The defense is also under orders to provide the court with a plan for electronic monitoring of Soliah while she is out on bail. District attorney’s office spokeswoman Sandi Gibbons said no plan had been submitted as of Monday.

Soliah is accused of placing pipe bombs under two Los Angeles police cars in retaliation for a 1974 shootout with police in which six SLA members were killed. The bombs did not go off. If convicted, she faces a maximum sentence of life in prison.

The SLA was a radical group that made headlines in the 1970s when it kidnapped heiress Patricia Hearst, who was later imprisoned for taking part in an SLA bank robbery.

Soliah, 52, spent 23 years as a fugitive before FBI agents acting on a tip generated by the TV show “America’s Most Wanted” captured her last month in St. Paul, Minn.