Supporters Committed to Olson’s Release

Mary Sutton knew exactly what to do when her friend and neighbor Sara Jane Olson was arrested in St. Paul, Minn., two years ago: mobilize.

Sutton, a political activist who has opposed apartheid and worked for women’s rights, quickly formed a committee to raise money and generate support for Olson, whose bombing conspiracy trial is scheduled to start this week in Los Angeles Superior Court.

The Sara Olson Defense Fund Committee is a hodgepodge of mostly middle-age progressives, including lawyers, graphic designers, actors and secretaries.

For some, Olson’s defense is one of several political causes on their radar screen. For others, it is an intensely personal struggle to help prevent their friend from spending the rest of her life in prison.

Olson’s supporters are writing letters to newspapers, delivering petitions and holding rallies. Originally based in St. Paul, they recently set up camp in an office on the Westside of Los Angeles, upstairs from a clothing shop called Closet Liberal.

Their first task was monumental: raising $1 million to bail Olson out of jail. More than 250 people contributed to the fund, and several friends mortgaged their homes and sacrificed savings accounts. Within days, they had enough.

Supporters raised additional funds for Olson’s defense by selling buttons and bumper stickers and publishing a cookbook, “Serving Time: America’s Most Wanted Recipes.” In addition to the bail, Sutton estimated that the committee has come up with nearly $80,000.

The group’s efforts have drawn the endorsement of professors, an actor, a rabbi and a Minnesota politician. Their work also has attracted 1970s personalities such as Bernardine Dohrn and Bill Ayers, former members of the violent Weather Underground.

Sutton and her crew plan to be a fixture throughout the estimated six to nine months of the trial, with students tracking daily developments and friends providing emotional support for Olson.

They hope their presence will not only make jurors realize that Olson is a real person, but also bring national attention to her as a political dissident who dared to question the government.

Olson, 54, formerly known as Kathleen Soliah, is accused of planting bombs under two police cars in 1975 while a member of the radical Symbionese Liberation Army. The bombs did not explode.

Pretrial motions are scheduled for this week, and jury selection could start as early as Oct. 29. Testimony is expected to begin in December.

“I think the reason they’re trying this case 25 years after the incident, in which no one was hurt, is because of her progressive politics,” said Eve Goldberg, a freelance cable television editor and member of the defense committee. “People with progressive politics have been singled out for persecution, prosecution, frame-ups.”

The committee members maintain Olson’s innocence, but compare her to Mumia Abu-Jamal, convicted of killing a police officer, and Leonard Peltier, convicted of killing two FBI agents. Supporters say Abu-Jamal and Peltier are political prisoners denied fair trials, and they don’t want the same thing to happen to Olson.

Defense attorney Shawn Chapman, however, said the group needs to be cautious about whom it aligns Olson with politically. Chapman is trying to keep some distance between the legal team and the support committee because of the group’s strong, and vocal, beliefs.

In the climate after the East Coast terrorist attacks, some legal experts say Olson’s supporters and defense attorneys are unlikely to find the public as understanding as they might hope regarding an alleged bombing plot.

“It becomes a harder sell in the atmosphere of nationalism,” said Loyola Law School professor Stan Goldman. “Any time you have this rush toward patriotism and nationalism, you have . . . people viewing the police, the government, the prosecution more favorably than they have before.”

The prosecution is calling the SLA a terrorist group and plans to present evidence of its crimes, including the kidnapping of newspaper heiress Patricia Hearst.

Arthur H. Patterson, a jury selection consultant with DecisionQuest, said the Olson camp should be aware of how the country has changed since Sept. 11.

“When your country is being attacked, it’s not a time to attack your government,” Patterson said. “If her defense is that she is exercising her rights to criticize government, people don’t want to hear that.”

Last week, about a dozen of Olson’s supporters staged a 15-minute rally in front of the Criminal Courts Building in downtown Los Angeles holding signs that read “We Love Sara” and “Sara Olson--Is a Fair Trial Possible?” They made speeches about the trial being politically motivated and presented a petition asking Dist. Atty. Steve Cooley to drop the charges.

Prosecutors say they have strong evidence that Olson conspired to plant the bombs in retaliation for the deaths of six SLA members.

Jane Robison, a spokeswoman for the district attorney’s office, said the defense committee can say whatever it wants outside the courtroom about Olson leading an exemplary life as a mother, but prosecutors will present evidence inside the courtroom to show that she tried to kill police officers.

“It is ludicrous to say this is a political trial,” Robison said. “The charges speak for themselves.”

Retired lawyer Hadassa Gilbert, 64, doesn’t buy that argument, and believes that Olson is innocent. She joined Olson’s committee last year after attending a reception on her behalf. Since then, she has given speeches about the case and appeared on talk shows. She also has hosted consciousness-raising groups at her Los Angeles home.

Gilbert calls herself a left-wing Democrat and said she feels a duty to work on Olson’s behalf.

“It’s so unfair,” she said. “I can’t see any societal benefit [from trying this case]. Will any of us be one bit safer if she’s convicted?”

James Lafferty, another Olson supporter, said the committee’s involvement has become even more important since Sept. 11. He said it will be impossible to find a fair jury “when you’ve got a country worried about terrorism.”

Lafferty, head of the Los Angeles chapter of the National Lawyers Guild, said he plans to make statements to the media during the trial to “influence the climate in which the trial will be seen.”

Sutton, 44, moved from St. Paul to the Los Angeles area in September to head the defense committee full time.

On a recent morning, the graphic designer updated the Olson Web site and compiled information packets. Sutton said she feels compelled to educate the public about her friend’s case, and hopes it will make a difference in the trial.

“When the [public] sees that reputable people are standing behind Sara,” she said, “they are going to question why the L.A. district attorney’s office is going to this extent to put this woman away for life.”

Times staff writer Steve Berry contributed to this report.