Olson Says Fear Prompted Guilty Plea

Imploring a judge to let her withdraw her guilty plea, accused Symbionese Liberation Army member Sara Jane Olson said in a legal motion unsealed Wednesday that she had entered the plea because she was afraid to go to trial on charges that she tried to blow up two Los Angeles police cars in 1975.

“After deeper reflection, I realize I cannot plead guilty when I know I am not,” Olson, 54, said in her written declaration signed Monday.

“Cowardice prevented me from doing what I knew I should: throw caution aside and move forward to trial,” said Olson, who pleaded guilty to the charges two weeks ago and again last week. “I am not second-guessing my decision as much as I have found the courage to take what I know is the honest course.”

Sandi Gibbons, spokeswoman for the district attorney’s office, said prosecutors strongly oppose Olson’s request to go to trial.

“The plea should stand,” she said. “It’s a good plea.”

Gibbons emphasized that Olson entered her plea “after receiving extensive advice from her battery of lawyers.”

Amid the 50,000 felony pleas entered annually in Los Angeles County, “it’s not unusual for a defendant to suffer a change of heart or buyer’s remorse,” she added.

Los Angeles Superior Court Judge Larry Paul Fidler, who unsealed Olson’s motion Wednesday, scheduled a hearing for Nov. 28.

Olson’s attorneys did not return calls for comment.

Olson, a 54-year-old Minnesota resident who was arrested in 1999 after almost a quarter-century on the lam, pleaded guilty Oct. 31 to two counts of attempting to bomb the police cars with the intent to commit murder.

In offering her plea, Olson also agreed in writing that there was “a factual basis” for her action and that she understood she was waiving her right to a trial and to an appeal.

In exchange for that admission, the district attorney’s office agreed to drop a conspiracy charge and two allegations of possessing explosives. Prosecutors allege that Olson acted as a member of the SLA, a radical group best known for kidnapping newspaper heiress Patricia Hearst.

After pleading guilty, Olson walked outside the courtroom and told reporters she was innocent. She said she had admitted guilt primarily out of fear that she would not receive a fair trial as a result of the Sept. 11 terrorist attacks.

Concerned about those comments, Fidler called a hearing Nov. 6 to reaffirm whether Olson stood by her initial plea. The St. Paul mother of three reaffirmed her plea, declaring that she did not make, possess or plant the bombs, but was pleading “under the concept of aiding and abetting.” Olson has declined to explain her role in any further detail.

Fidler let the guilty plea remain in force. Olson is due to be sentenced Dec. 7 to 20 years to life in state prison, but could serve anywhere from a little more than five years to life, depending on decisions made by the state Board of Prison Terms.

If Fidler lets her withdraw her plea, Olson would face trial on all five counts of the indictment.

In the motion filed this week, she declares that she is ready for that to happen.

“I implore you, Judge Fidler, to allow me to withdraw my guilty pleas,” she wrote. “. . . Please . . . grant my request to go to trial on all of the charges for which I was indicted in 1976.”

Until the September attacks, Olson had been willing to take her chances with a jury, she said. “The attacks on our country created a genuine fear in the public and consequently, the jury pool,” she said.

Olson’s lawyer, Shawn Chapman, argued in the motion that Fidler has a legal basis for granting the request.

Chapman cited a state appellate court decision that said, “The continued acceptance by the court of a guilty plea in the face of a defendant’s suggestion that in fact he is not guilty runs contrary to all basic conceptions of justice under law.”

“Whenever the Superior Court has reason to suspect that a defendant has pleaded guilty to a felony as a matter of expediency . . . [it] has inherent power to set aside the plea on its own initiative prior to entry of judgment,” Chapman quoted from the decision.

Gibbons, the district attorney’s spokeswoman, said Chapman and Olson have provided “insufficient grounds” for withdrawing the plea.