Prosecutors May Call Most SLA Figures in Olson Trial

If Los Angeles prosecutors get their way, the bomb plot trial of accused revolutionary Sara Jane Olson could resemble a reunion of the Symbionese Liberation Army’s class of 1975.

For the first time, there are hints that Deputy Dist. Attys. Eleanor Hunter and Michael Latin plan to call most of the former SLA figures to testify at Olson’s trial, which is scheduled to begin in February.

A source close to the case said prosecutors gave the defense a witness list earlier this week containing the names of nearly 300 people. Among them: William and Emily Harris, then known as revolutionaries Teko and Yolanda; Olson’s brother Steven Soliah; her brother-in-law, Michael Bortin; and former radical Wendy Yoshimura.

Newspaper heiress Patricia Hearst Shaw, who was kidnapped by and joined forces with the SLA, already has been ordered to testify.

Olson, a physician’s wife from St. Paul, Minn., is accused of conspiring with other, unindicted SLA members to kill Los Angeles police officers. The plot began in May 1974, and allegedly culminated with the planting of nail bombs under two squad cars in August 1975. Olson was arrested in June after 23 years on the run and is free on $1 million bail.

All the prospective witnesses figured prominently in the SLA’s regrouping activities after the April 1974 fire and shootout that killed six of the group’s members in South-Central Los Angeles, according to the prosecution’s trial brief. The scheme to blow up LAPD cars allegedly came as retaliation for the SLA deaths.

The bombs did not explode and no one was hurt.

A defense source said that, unlike Hearst, who has been granted immunity from prosecution, the other SLA witnesses are unlikely to provide compelling testimony because they could still face charges in connection with about a dozen crimes attributed to the SLA. As a result, the source said, the SLA witnesses are likely to invoke their 5th Amendment rights against self-incrimination.

Most significant among the unresolved crimes is the April 1975 robbery of a Crocker National Bank branch near Sacramento. A customer was shot and killed. Hearst has identified Emily Harris as the assailant, but other SLA conspirators also could face felony murder charges that carry life prison sentences.

Hearst testified under a grant of immunity before a state grand jury in 1991; the panel refused to issue indictments.

Alleged getaway driver Steven Soliah was acquitted in federal court.

Meanwhile, in court in Los Angeles on Friday, the 1976 indictment accusing Olson, then known as Kathleen Soliah, of conspiring to kill Los Angeles police officers survived a series of legal challenges from the defense.

Superior Court Judge James M. Ideman denied defense requests to dismiss the indictment, though he said he found the legal arguments interesting.

The judge also postponed the trial until February to allow experts from the prosecution and defense time to test the explosives evidence.

Besides the nail bombs found under two police vehicles in August 1975, the evidence includes bomb components found in a San Francisco apartment that prosecutors say Olson shared with the Harrises.

Other legal arguments focused on how much jurors at the trial will learn about the other alleged SLA crimes, many of which remain unsolved. The defense has complained that prosecutors, lacking evidence of the crime contained in the indictment, are seeking to smear Olson with evidence of the other crimes.

However, the judge said the defense could better challenge the breadth of the case during a series of evidentiary hearings scheduled for early January.

Even the prosecution team seemed divided on the issue. Latin suggested that the case will focus on activities in Los Angeles, adding that other SLA crimes would be relevant only in proving Olson’s involvement. But Hunter quickly added that the bombing attempts in Los Angeles were “part of a bigger conspiracy.”

In a trial brief submitted last month, the prosecutors said they intended to revisit such SLA actions as the 1973 killing of Oakland schools Supt. Marcus Foster and the 1974 Hearst kidnapping.

Defense attorneys Susan Jordan and Stuart Hanlon say about half the 2,000 pages of documents prosecutors have released so far focus on the April 1975 bank robbery that killed customer Myrna Opsah. .

In her book “Every Secret Thing,” Hearst wrote that Olson and Bortin were inside the bank when Emily Harris fired the fatal shot.