Thursday November 1, 2001

LOS ANGELES - Former Symbionese Liberation Army fugitive Sara Jane Olson pleaded guilty yesterday to possessing bombs with intent to murder policemen during the violent era of the revolutionary group in 1975.

The surprise plea came in an agreement that does not guarantee Olson a specific sentence. Her lawyers said they expected her to get about five years in prison, but the judge warned she could be sentenced to life behind bars.

"Are you pleading guilty freely and voluntarily?" asked Deputy District Attorney Eleanor Hunter as she outlined the agreement.

"I am," Olson said during a brief court hearing.

Olson, 54, admitted possessing explosive devices and attempting to explode them Aug. 21, 1975, at a Los Angeles police station and a Hollywood restaurant. In return, the prosecution dismissed three other charges.

Defense lawyers and prosecutors had spent some four hours in the judge's chambers before the agreement was announced. Superior Court Judge Larry Paul Fidler said most of the discussion centered on how much time Olson would have to serve.

The agreement calls for Olson to surrender to the California Department of Corrections on Jan. 8 with a recommendation from prosecutors that she be allowed to serve her time in Minnesota near her family.

Her husband, Dr. Fred Peterson, her mother, Elsie Soliah, and her daughter Sophie Peterson, sat in the front row of the courtroom as the plea was entered. Earlier, her daughter had been in tears, hugging her mother as she entered the courtroom.

The plea ended a court case that harkened back 26 years to the era of the revolutionary SLA that kidnapped heiress Patty Hearst. The case against Olson was resurrected with her arrest 2 1/2 years ago.

A grand jury accused Olson of attempting to murder officers in retaliation for the deaths of six members of the radical group who died in a shootout and fire in 1974. The bombs did not explode.

She was indicted in 1976 under her given name, Kathleen Soliah, but remained a fugitive until her June 1999 capture in St. Paul, Minn., where she was living under the assumed name Olson.

Her arrest came soon after the FBI offered a $20,000 reward on the 25th anniversary of the SLA shootout and her case was featured on the television show "America's Most Wanted."

Olson vanished shortly after the attempted bombings. She maintained later that she had nothing to do with it and was not in the area when the bombs were planted. She also contended she was never a full-fledged member of the SLA, but was merely a friend of some of the revolutionaries.

Her brother, Steven Soliah, was tried and acquitted in a related 1975 bank robbery in the Sacramento area.

While a fugitive, Olson married, had three children and lived the life of a volunteer and community activist in Minnesota.

She lived in an upscale neighborhood and did not avoid public attention. Her community theater roles even drew notice from local reviewers.

The SLA, a violent band that used a seven-headed snake as its symbol, made a name for itself with the kidnapping of the then-19-year-old Hearst from her Berkeley, Calif. apartment in February 1974.

Hearst soon joined the SLA and took the name Tania and two months after her abduction was photographed holding a rifle during an SLA bank robbery in San Francisco. She was later arrested and imprisoned until President Jimmy Carter commuted her sentence.

In the meantime, six heavily-armed members of the SLA, including its leader, an ex-convict who called himself Cinque, were discovered by police in a Los Angeles house on May 17, 1974. They died in a shootout with police and fire that consumed the residence. Hearst later wrote a book in which she implicated Olson in SLA crimes. She had been reluctant to come to Los Angeles and testify against Olson, saying she had put the SLA behind her and did not want to dredge up unhappy memories.

The prosecution said it had plans to bring up every crime committed by the SLA, including the 1973 killing of an Oakland schools superintendent. Olson was not charged with that crime or any others aside from the attempted bombings, but prosecutors maintained her association with the group showed her violent intent.