Former SLA Member Posts Bail

Associated Press/February 17, 2002

Sacramento, Calif. -- One of five former Symbionese Liberation Army members charged with killing a woman in a 1975 bank heist posted bond Sunday.

Emily Harris, 54, was released after posting $1 million bail, said her lawyer, Stuart Hanlon. Sacramento County Jail officials confirmed Harris was no longer in custody.

"She was feeling great,'' Hanlon said. "She was very thankful there was family and friends who raised this money for her. Her full-time job is now to prove what they have been saying about her for all these years is not true.''

He said his client is now spending time with her friends and family at a Sacramento hotel.

Harris and her ex-husband, 56-year-old William Harris, are awaiting trial for the murder of 42-year-old Myrna Opsahl during a bank heist. Opsahl was depositing a church collection during the SLA's April 21, 1975 robbery of the Crocker National Bank.

Charles Bourdon, who represents William Harris, said his firm still is trying to raise money to meet the $1 million bail for his client.

The SLA became notorious for killing an Oakland school superintendent and kidnapping newspaper heiress Patricia Hearst.

In setting bail at $1 million each, Judge Tani Cantil-Sakauye cited the seriousness of the 1975 crime and the potential loss of freedom the defendants face if convicted.

The Harrises led the SLA after a police shootout left six members dead in a blazing Los Angeles house fire in May 1974.

William Harris, who called himself General Teko, and Emily Harris, who called herself Yolanda, spent more than a year with Hearst before their 1975 capture in San Francisco. Opsahl's death occurred during that time.