Olson Conflicted Over Plea but Resigned to Jail Time

Sara Jane Olson said Thursday she knew she was breaking the law when she gave Symbionese Liberation Army members fake identifications and other help in the 1970s.

But she said she never imagined her behavior might land her in prison for life.

Olson, in an interview at her lawyer’s office in Beverly Hills, said she gave the SLA members money, rented cars and apartments on their behalf, and helped them flee from law enforcement authorities.

She said she felt morally obligated to help the SLA after six members, including her close friend Angela Atwood, died in a shootout with Los Angeles police officers in 1974.

“I thought I was doing society a favor by preventing more deaths, and it was in honor of my friend Angela,” she said. “It doesn’t mean there are no regrets. There were just not bad intentions.”

In contrast to her emotional and sometimes volatile appearances in court, Olson was calm and reflective during the 2 1/2-hour interview with The Times. She reminisced about her youth during the 1960s and 1970s with an occasional smile, and became far more serious when discussing the case and her future.

She continued to deny any participation in an alleged plot to bomb two Los Angeles police cruisers in 1975 in an attempt to kill officers. “I didn’t blow anything up--or even try to,” she said.

But on Oct. 31, the 54-year-old Minnesota resident pleaded guilty. Despite her attempt to withdraw her plea later, Los Angeles Superior Court Judge Larry Paul Fidler ruled Dec. 3 that her guilty plea would stand. From the bench, Fidler accused her of lying and said, “She pled guilty because she is guilty.”

On Jan. 18, she is scheduled to be sentenced to 20 years to life in state prison. Her attorneys believe the state Board of Prison Terms will order her to serve about five years.

Olson and her attorney, Shawn Chapman, are still deciding whether to appeal Fidler’s decision and keep fighting for a jury trial.

Olson said in the interview that she believes Fidler acted inappropriately. She said prosecutors lied about whether they plan to push the state Board of Prison Terms to impose a life sentence. And she’s angry with her other attorney, J. Tony Serra, who did not show up for last week’s court hearing because he missed his flight from Oakland and then claimed he had “bad karma.”

On Thursday, the former 1970s activist seemed resigned to going to prison. She said she doesn’t have the money to hire another attorney to replace Serra, who took the case pro bono, and doesn’t want to put her family through a trial.

In addition, she said, “We would probably just end up back in front of Fidler, and that’s a foregone conclusion,” she said. “It’s kind of a no-go.”

She hopes she won’t be harassed in prison and will have the chance to learn Spanish and teach other inmates English, she said. “I don’t expect it will be a lot of fun,” she said. “But it will be educational in many ways.”

Olson, formerly known as Kathleen Soliah, said she was introduced to the SLA through Atwood, her waitressing friend. After Atwood’s death, Olson said she helped organize a memorial in Berkeley. That’s when she gave a well-publicized and fiery speech in which she said she was with the SLA.

Right after that memorial rally, Olson said, is when SLA member Emily Harris came to her and asked for money. Olson continued to help the group off and on for a few months, but she said she never knew exactly what they were doing. And she said she never participated in any bank robberies or bombings.

She admitted in the interview that prosecutors had a circumstantial case, and a jury could have found her guilty for conspiring with the SLA.

“That was my potential downfall,” she said. She said the biggest mystery was a letter that appeared to be in her handwriting ordering fuses before the bombing attempt. Olson says it looked like her handwriting but she doesn’t remember any such letter.

Olson spent 23 years on the lam before being arrested near her Minnesota home. She fled after her brother, Steve Soliah, was arrested, but before a grand jury indicted her in 1976. She went on to get married, have three daughters, and be involved in community theater and the anti-apartheid movement. She said she never told her husband, Fred Peterson, about her previous life. She said she told him that she had a falling out with her family and told him he could not ask about it.

“I just thought [telling him] couldn’t do anything but harm,” she said.

Once, in 1986, she said she considered turning herself in, but decided not to when prosecutors relayed to her through an attorney that they wanted her to serve time for the crimes.

Until the Sept. 11 terrorist attacks, Olson said she always intended to go to trial. But then she began to worry that jurors would not treat her fairly because they would see her as a terrorist. She said she agreed to enter into a plea agreement with prosecutors to eliminate the risk of a mandatory life sentence.

Minutes after following a carefully written script in court to plead guilty, she went outside and told reporters she was innocent. She said she didn’t think she was doing anything wrong, because defendants who are innocent take deals all the time to avoid long sentences.

“What did they expect?” she said in the interview. “They knew it was a deal. A plea bargain. What difference did it make?”

Her comments outside the courtroom irritated prosecutors and the judge, who called her back in to explain her actions. At that Nov. 6 hearing, Olson said, she planned on telling the judge she wanted to go to trial. But, she said, Serra told her she was crazy if she didn’t take the deal. So, Olson said, she relied on her attorney’s expertise, even though she disagreed.

The next week, after she said she heard one of the prosecutors boast about getting her to agree to a life sentence, Olson said she called Chapman and told her she wanted to withdraw the plea. Olson said she made the decision by herself, and was not pressured by family or friends.

She had simply decided that she was willing to take the risk of winning or losing in front of a jury, Olson said. But Fidler denied her that option.

She still is conflicted about her decision to plead guilty. In one breath, she said it was a mistake and she regrets not telling Serra that she didn’t want to follow his recommendation. In the next, she said, “I know intellectually it was the right thing to do, but I don’t like it. I wanted to go to trial.”

Olson knows now she can’t take back what she said. She will spend the holidays with her family before the sentencing.

Reflecting on the past few months, Olson said she agrees that the case became a circus. She considers her story a modern-day fable, with the moral being: “Be careful what you do--it could come back to haunt you.”

Olson says she knows she will always be remembered for her part in the SLA’s sordid story.

“I’d rather not go down in history at all,” she said. “I’m going down because of history.”