Symbionese - Activities During The Period of Hearst's Membership - Capture and Conviction

Capture and Conviction

Patricia Hearst, after a long and highly publicized search, was captured with Wendy Yoshimura on September 18, 1975. In her affidavit she claimed that SLA members had used LSD to drug her and had forced her to take part in the bank raid. However, Hearst's recorded statements, along with the fact that she had not escaped when she had the opportunity, made many think she had thrown in her lot with the revolutionaries. Despite her claims, she was convicted of the Hibernia Bank robbery and sentenced to seven years in prison but had served only 21 months when her sentence was commuted by US President Jimmy Carter. She was pardoned by President Bill Clinton on his last day in office.

On August 21, 1975, Kathleen Soliah failed in her attempt to kill officers of the LAPD when the bombs she placed under a police car did not detonate.

Soliah remained a fugitive, first in Rhodesia, and then in Minnesota under the alias Sara Jane Olson; she married a doctor and had three daughters.

The FBI caught up with and arrested Sara Jane Olson in 1999 after a tip was received by the television show America's Most Wanted, which had aired her profile. In 2001, she pled guilty to possession of explosives with the intent to murder and was sentenced to two consecutive terms of ten years to life, although she had been told as part of a plea bargain that she would serve only eight years. She claimed that she pled guilty because of the climate after September 11, 2001, but that in fact she had not made, possessed, nor placed the pipe bombs.

On January 16, 2002, first-degree murder charges for the killing of Myrna Opsahl were filed against Sara Jane Olson, the Harrises, Bortin, and Kilgore. All were living "above ground" and were immediately arrested except for James Kilgore, who remained at large for nearly another year.

On November 7, 2002, Soliah, the Harrises, and Bortin pled guilty to the murder charges. Emily Harris, now known as Emily Montague, admitted to being the one holding the murder weapon but said that the shotgun had gone off accidentally. Hearst had claimed that Montague had dismissed the murder at the time saying, "She was a bourgeois pig anyway. Her husband is a doctor." In court, Montague denied having said this and added, "I do not want to believe that we ever considered her life insignificant."

Sentences were handed down on February 14, 2003, in Sacramento, California for all four defendants in the Opsahl murder case. Montague was sentenced to eight years for the murder (2nd degree). Her former husband, William Harris, was sentenced to seven years, and Bortin to six years. Soliah has had six years added to the 14-year sentence she is already serving. All sentences were the maximum allowed under their plea bargains.

On November 8, 2002, James Kilgore, who had been a fugitive since 1975, was arrested in South Africa and extradited to the United States to face federal explosives and passport fraud charges. Prosecutors alleged that a pipe bomb had been found in Kilgore's apartment in 1975 and that he had obtained a passport under a false name. He pleaded guilty to the charges in 2003.

Sara Jane Olson was expecting to receive a five-year, four-month sentence, but "in stiffening Olson's sentence ..., the prison board turned to a seldom-used section of state law, allowing it to recalculate sentences for old crimes in light of new, tougher sentencing guidelines." Olson was sentenced to 14 years— later reduced to 13 years—plus six years for her role in the Opsahl killing. Hearst had immunity because she was a state's witness, but as there was no trial, she never testified.

On April 26, 2004, Kilgore was sentenced to 54 months in prison for the explosives and passport fraud charges. He was the last remaining SLA member to face federal prosecution.

After serving six years of the prison sentence, Sarah Jane Olson was released on parole and reunited with her family in California on March 17, 2008. But after a discovery that her release was premature because of a clerical error, an arrest warrant was issued. She was arrested at Los Angeles International Airport and notified that her right to travel out of state had been rescinded. She was returned to prison.

On March 17, 2009, Sarah Olsen was released, this time correctly, after serving 7 years of her 14-year sentence. She was to check in with her parole officer in Los Angeles where it would be determined if she would be allowed to serve her parole in St. Paul, Minnesota, with her husband and three daughters. Several officials, including the Governor of Minnesota, urged that she serve her parole in California, but she was finally allowed to serve her parole in Minnesota.

On May 10, 2009, James Kilgore was released from prison in California. He was the last captured SLA member to be released.

Founding member Joseph Remiro remains in prison as of 2009.

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