Patty Hearst Denies That Interview Violated Gag Rule
Patty Hearst Shaw has denied violating a Los Angeles Superior Court judge’s gag order, saying she gave an interview in a national magazine to rebut “absurd allegations” that she staged her own kidnapping by the Symbionese Liberation Army in 1974.
The letter to Judge James M. Ideman, written by Hearst’s longtime attorney, George C. Martinez, states that she never was served with the order in the bomb-plot case of former SLA associate Sara Jane Olson. The letter points out that Hearst did not discuss specifics of the alleged 1975 plot to bomb two Los Angeles police cars, or the charges against Olson.
Olson’s defense attorneys, J. Tony Serra and Shawn Chapman, are seeking sanctions for alleged gag order violations against Hearst, Dist. Atty. Gil Garcetti, trial prosecutor Michael Latin and witness James Bryan, a former Los Angeles police officer allegedly targeted by the would-be SLA bombers.
In court papers filed Wednesday, Latin denies he violated the gag order, calling the defense allegation specious. Garcetti has apologized to the judge in a letter acknowledging that he “may have inadvertently violated” the gag.
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