AP. 16 January 2002. Three Former SLA Members Arrested in Deadly 1975 Bank Robbery Near Sacramento.
SACRAMENTO, Calif. -- Three former members of the Symbionese Liberation Army, the 1970s radical group that kidnapped newspaper heiress Patty Hearst, were arrested Wednesday in connection with a deadly bank robbery carried out 27 years ago. Emily Harris, ex-husband Bill Harris and Mike Bortin will be charged with first-degree murder in the slaying of a bank customer during a 1975 holdup in the suburb of Carmichael, authorities said. Emily Harris was arrested at her home in Los Angeles, her ex-husband was taken into custody in Oakland, and Bortin was arrested in Portland, Ore. The arrests came two days before the sentencing of another former SLA member, Sara Jane Olson, for her role in a failed 1975 attempt to blow up Los Angeles police cars. Los Angeles District Attorney's spokeswoman Sandi Gibbons would not say whether Olson would testify in the robbery case. "I question the timing of this," said Shawn Snider Chapman, one of Olson's lawyers. Prosecutors had hoped Olson's testimony would advance the bank robbery case. Bortin is married to one of Olson's sisters. But Olson has denied any involvement in the holdup. Chapman said that during the two years she has investigated the Olson case, "all I've learned and all I've read is that they consider this to be an unprosecutable case. All these people have been snatched from their homes for nothing." Unlike Olson, who was captured in Minnesota in 1999 after two decades on the run, the three SLA figures arrested Wednesday were not fugitives. Their whereabouts had been known to authorities for years. The 1975 holdup of the Crocker National Bank led to the slaying of 42-year-old Myrna Opsahl, a mother of four who was shot while depositing a church collection. At the time, the robbers were widely believed to be members of the group that kidnapped Hearst as a 19-year-old from her Berkeley apartment. Hearst later wrote about the holdup, claiming she was waiting in a getaway car. She placed Olson and Bortin at the scene and said it was Emily Harris who shot Opsahl. But none of them was ever charged in the case. The case has been the subject of numerous investigations, and Dr. Jon Opsahl, the son of the victim, had lobbied prosecutors for years to file charges. After kidnapping Hearst in 1974, the SLA demanded that her parents, Randolph and Catherine Hearst, distribute millions in food to the needy. Ultimately, Hearst became a member of the SLA and took the name Tania. Two months after the kidnapping, she was photographed carrying a carbine during an SLA bank holdup in San Francisco. Although she claimed she was the victim of brainwashing, she was convicted of bank robbery and sentenced to seven years in prison. She served about two years before President Carter commuted her sentence. In 2000, she was pardoned by President Clinton. The Harrises spent eight years in prison for kidnapping Hearst. Emily Harris had been living in Southern California under an assumed name and was working as a computer consultant. Her former husband is remarried, the father of two, and was working as a private investigator. Bortin, 53, spent 18 months in prison for possession of explosives. He is married and has a flooring business. . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . Barry Stoller http://groups.yahoo.com/group/ProletarianNews
