Calif. Extends Prison Term for Ex - SLA Member Olson

Reuters/October 17, 2002

Sacramento -- California's Board of Prison Terms voted on Wednesday to extend the prison sentence for former Symbionese Liberation Army radical Sara Jane Olson, saying her part in a 1975 conspiracy to blow up Los Angeles police cars warranted more time behind bars.

Olson, who had earlier been sentenced to five years and four months, was given a new sentence of 14 years -- although she could be out in as early as seven to nine years, officials said.

Board spokesman Jim Sassa said board members had decided to extend Olson's sentence after taking into account the seriousness of her crime and her more than two decades on the run before being captured in 1999.

"If either one of those bombs had gone off a lot of people would have been hurt or killed,'' Sassa said.

Olson, who prosecutors say played an important role in the extremist Symbionese Liberation Army as Kathleen Ann Soliah in the 1970s, surfaced in the suburbs of St. Paul, Minnesota, where she married an emergency room physician and raised three daughters.

She originally pleaded guilty to the bombing charges but later sought to retract those pleas, saying they had been coerced. That bid was denied.

She is facing separate murder charges in Sacramento County, California stemming from a 1975 SLA bank robbery in which a bystander was shot and killed.

She has pleaded not guilty to that charge and the trial -- which is expected to hinge on the testimony of Patricia Hearst, the newspaper heiress who was kidnapped by the SLA and later took part in some of their raids -- is expected to begin early next year.