Olson Enters Surprise Guilty Plea in SLA Case

Saying she could not receive a fair trial because of the Sept. 11 terrorist attacks, accused Symbionese Liberation Army member Sara Jane Olson pleaded guilty Wednesday to attempting to blow up two LAPD cars in 1975 in an effort to murder police officers.

Olson, who had been arrested in Minnesota nearly a quarter of a century after adopting a new name and going underground, entered into a plea agreement in which she could receive anywhere from five years to life in prison.

“After 27 years, she has finally been held accountable,” said Deputy Dist. Atty. Michael Latin.

The plea brings an end to a case that would have essentially put the radical SLA back on trial nearly three decades after it captured the nation’s attention by kidnapping newspaper heiress Patricia Hearst, who eventually joined her captors and became a gun-toting bank robber.

Even after admitting her guilt before a Los Angeles County Superior Court judge, Olson, 54, continued to deny that she planted the bombs or tried to kill anybody.

“I pleaded to something of which I am not guilty,” she said outside court, surrounded by family members and supporters.

“It became clear to me that [Sept. 11] was going to have a remarkable effect on the outcome of this trial,” she said with tears in her eyes. “I think it’s unfortunate that the effect probably was going to be negative.”

Prosecutors in the case scoffed at Olson’s claim that she is not guilty. “Then she was either lying in court, or she is lying to the press just to save face,” said Deputy Dist. Atty. Eleanor Hunter. “If she thought she was not guilty, she should have gone to trial.”

The sentence that Olson will receive is disputed.

Prosecutors say the law requires that she be ordered to serve 20 years to life in prison when she is sentenced Dec. 7. But defense attorneys believe she will actually serve just over five years. Judge Larry Paul Fidler warned her, however, that the state parole board could extend the time.

“Ms. Olson understands it is conceivable she could receive a life sentence,” said Fidler, minutes before she entered her guilty plea.

She will remain free on bail until she surrenders to the California Department of Corrections on Jan. 18.

As part of the plea agreement, prosecutors said they would dismiss one count of conspiring to commit murder and two counts of possessing a destructive device. Olson pleaded guilty to two counts of attempting to explode a destructive device with the intent to commit murder.

“Today’s plea of guilty by Sara Jane Olson . . . closes a chapter in the book of terrorism conducted by SLA members and associates,” said Dist. Atty. Steve Cooley.

Olson, who stopped using her given name, Kathleen Soliah, after taking flight in 1975, was indicted by the Los Angeles County Grand Jury in 1976 on charges of conspiring to murder police officers by planting bombs underneath their cars in retaliation for a Los Angeles shootout that left six SLA members dead. The nail-packed bombs never exploded.

Olson disappeared soon after the bombs were found in August 1975, eventually married a Midwestern emergency room physician and raised three daughters. She lived as a fugitive in Zimbabwe and St. Paul, Minn., where she was active in community theater and volunteer work for the blind.

Her underground life came to a sudden end on June 16, 1999, when police pulled her over in her white minivan. They had received tips from old acquaintances and viewers of the TV show “America’s Most Wanted,” which publicized a $20,000 FBI reward for her arrest.

Olson has been free on bail since friends and family posted $1 million shortly after her arrest.

Outside court Wednesday, Olson’s mother, Elsie Soliah, said she was shocked to tears by her daughter’s decision to plead guilty to the charges.

“I’m sad,” said Soliah, who lives in Palmdale. “It was a complete surprise to me that she pleaded guilty. I always believed she was not guilty.”

In accepting the plea agreement, defense attorneys J. Tony Serra and Shawn Chapman said they decided to take the “pragmatic course” because they didn’t believe jurors could be fair to someone accused of being a domestic terrorist while the country is engaged in a war on terrorism.

“Everything changed after Sept. 11 and will never be the same,” Serra said. “We’re fearful . . . that a jury, impregnated with emotion and trauma of Sept. 11, could convict.”

The defense team had been seriously considering a settlement since after the terrorist attack, members said. Negotiations went into high gear after they failed in a bid to persuade Judge Fidler to continue the trial until January because of potential juror anxiety. Latin said the prosecution’s offer remained the same throughout the talks. Attorneys for both sides spent more than two hours Wednesday morning discussing the deal in a closed hearing in the judge’s chambers.

Then, just before 2 p.m., Olson entered her plea in open court. Deputy Dist. Atty. Hunter asked, “Are you pleading guilty freely and voluntarily?”

Olson responded firmly, “I am.”

By pleading guilty, Olson waived the right to appeal her plea, but reserved the right to challenge sentencing decisions of the state parole board. Olson said outside court that she resisted making a deal for a long time, but decided that a jury trial would have been more of a gamble.

Prosecutors told Fidler they will agree that Olson can serve her time in a Minnesota prison. Prosecutors and defense attorneys disagreed, however, over how her term will be calculated, because California state law changed two years after the crime was committed in 1975.

Defense attorneys acknowledge that the state parole board could extend her sentence if it deems her a danger to society. Prosecutors say they believe the parole board could order her to spend the rest of her life in prison.

The guilty plea upset some of Olson’s family and friends.

“It stinks,” Mary Sutton, a longtime friend who headed Olson’s fund-raising committee, said outside court. “There’s no choice. There’s absolutely no way she could get a fair trial.”

Olson’s husband, Dr. Fred Peterson, hugged his wife and 19-year-old daughter Sophia as they left the courtroom. “I’m proud of my wife and stand by my wife as a dedicated husband should,” he said.

The president of the LAPD union was pleased at how the case was resolved.

“We hope that her admittance of guilt sends a strong message to the public that people who attempt to murder police officers cannot escape justice just because they become a model citizen, raise a family and change their criminal behavior,” said Mitzi Grasso, president of the Los Angeles Police Protective League.

Los Angeles Police Chief Bernard C. Parks said, “It was a direct affront to the law enforcement community and the law-abiding public to witness Soliah’s continued defiance to society, even after she pleaded guilty to these horrendous crimes.”

Opening statements in the long-awaited trial were scheduled to begin next month. Jurors were already being screened and pretrial motions were underway. The trial was expected to last between six and nine months, with hundreds of witnesses, including Hearst, scheduled to take the stand. Slated to testify were former SLA members, FBI agents, police officers and eyewitnesses to the bombing attempt.

On Aug. 21, 1975, Los Angeles Police Officers John Hall and James Bryan stopped at an International House of Pancakes on Sunset Boulevard for a late dinner. As they sat inside, a bomb was rigged beneath their patrol car, meant to explode when they pulled out. But because the officers made a sharp turn, the triggering device malfunctioned and the bomb never went off, authorities believe. After the bomb was found, the LAPD searched patrol cars throughout the city and found a second bomb under a car at the Hollenbeck station.

Prosecutors claim Olson was an SLA member and attempted to kill the officers as part of a wide-ranging conspiracy to incite a revolution. Defense attorneys have maintained their client’s innocence and said she never joined the organization.

The SLA didn’t last long--only 22 months. But during that time, the radical group kidnapped Hearst and assassinated an Oakland schools superintendent. SLA members eventually fled south to Los Angeles, where police officers tracked them down. They refused to surrender and got into a fiery shootout with LAPD officers that left six SLA members dead.

Olson, who was raised in Palmdale and moved to Berkeley after college, was first tied to the SLA by authorities the month after the Los Angeles shootout. It was then that she gave a speech in Berkeley eulogizing those who died. She had waitressed with one of those members, Angela Atwood.

In 1975, the SLA was linked to two bank robberies in the Sacramento area. During one of the robberies, a female bank customer was killed.

Prosecutors had 40,000 pieces of physical evidence and more than 23,000 pages of documents, some bearing Olson’s fingerprints. They also had handwriting evidence that they said showed Olson ordered fuses two weeks before the attempted bombings. Latin said the evidence would not have directly tied her to the bombs placed underneath the police cars, but it overwhelmingly tied the SLA to the bombs and her to the SLA.

Defense attorneys planned to attack the credibility of the handwriting and fingerprint evidence, and to challenge testimony by Hearst and police. They also were trying to get the judge to bar testimony about bomb-making materials FBI agents found in 1975 without search warrants.

Stuart Hanlon, who left the defense team but continued as an advisor, said he now wishes he could have tried the case soon after Olson’s arrest. The trial was delayed several times at the request of the defense. “Looking back, we would have won,” he said. “In hindsight, I feel somewhat responsible.”

*

Times staff writers Dalondo Moultrie and Ann W. O’Neill contributed to this story.

(BEGIN TEXT OF INFOBOX / INFOGRAPHIC)

A Long Legal Saga

September 1973: Symbionese Liberation Army is founded by escaped convict Donald DeFreeze, calling himself Cinque Mtume. DeFreeze recruits from the prisoners’ rights movement. Nov. 6: Oakland schools Supt. Marcus Foster is slain by SLA members.

Feb. 2, 1974: Newspaper heiress Patricia Hearst is kidnapped.

May 16-17: Six SLA members die during shootout and fire at a Los Angeles safe house.

June 2: Rally at Ho Chi Minh Park in Berkeley; Kathleen Soliah joins SLA, according to prosecutors.

April 21, 1975: Robbery of Crocker Savings & Loan in Carmichael nets $15,000, results in death of Myrna Opsahl, a 42-year-old mother of four who was making a deposit for her church.

Aug. 21-22: Bombs planted under LAPD squad cars. They fail to explode.

Sept. 18: Five SLA members are arrested in the Bay Area. Soliah escapes and goes underground. June 1999: Soliah, now known as Sara Jane Olson, is arrested by the FBI in St. Paul, Minn., on conspiracy and explosives charges. July: Olson is extradited to Los Angeles. Bail is set at $1 million. One week later she is released on bail, raised by friends, neighbors and supportive strangers.

October: Hearst is subpoenaed and ordered to testify in Olson’s trial.

January 2000: A judge rules that prosecutors can show jurors evidence of 23 crimes attributed to the SLA to prove Olson was an enthusiastic member of the group. Olson denies having been an SLA member.

January 2001: A new judge in Olson’s case, Superior Court Judge Larry Paul Fidler, reschedules the trial to begin on April 30.

Early February: The FBI and Sacramento County Sheriff’s Department announce they are reopening an investigation into allegations that Olson and other SLA members participated in the 1975 Carmichael bank robbery.

Late February: Judge Fidler agrees that evidence can be introduced at trial about the SLA but says he will screen it first to be sure it is relevant.

Early July: The 2nd District Court of Appeal rules that Olson’s attorneys are entitled to more time to prepare her defense and moves the start date of her trial to Sept. 24.

Early October: Olson’s defense attorneys ask that jury selection be postponed until January, saying the Sept. 11 terrorist attacks would prevent her from receiving a fair trial.

Mid-October: Judge Fidler denies the defense motion to postpone jury selection because of public anger over terrorism and orders the process to begin Oct. 29. The estimated length of the trial is six to nine months.

Oct. 31: Olson pleads guilty to possessing bombs with intent to murder policemen during 1975.

Researched by ANN O’NEILL and TRACY THOMAS/Los Angeles Times

LYNN MEERSMAN / Los Angeles Times