Her Trial to Test Hearst, Olson Says

SAN FRANCISCO —  Freshly ungagged and ensconced among friends, Sara Jane Olson told supporters at a fund-raiser Saturday night that her upcoming Los Angeles trial will be a credibility contest between her and Patty Hearst Shaw.

Olson criticized the newspaper heiress, who was kidnapped by the radical Symbionese Liberation Army in 1974, and the Los Angeles Police Department. She said Hearst’s version of events has gone unchallenged for more than 30 years.

“Someone did a little writing about a group called the Symbionese Liberation Army, and her version has been enshrined as the undisputed truth . . . until my trial,” Olson told a crowd of about 100 supporters.

She was referring to Hearst’s 1982 book, “Every Secret Thing,” about the kidnapping and subsequent crimes by the SLA.

Olson, 53, is accused of plotting with SLA members to kill Los Angeles police officers by planting pipe bombs under two patrol cars in 1975. Prosecutors say the bombs, which did not explode, were intended to avenge the deaths of six SLA members in a fiery shootout with police the previous year.

Except for denying her guilt, Olson had not spoken much publicly about the case since her arrest in June 1999 after more than two decades in hiding. She had been living with her husband, a physician, and their three children in Minnesota.

Olson was free to speak because Los Angeles Superior Court Judge James M. Ideman on Friday lifted a gag order affecting Olson and others involved in the case.

Olson has said she was never an SLA member and only helped members hide out after the police shootout, in which her best friend died.

In her book and in a recent magazine interview, Hearst has portrayed Olson as an eager SLA wannabe.

Olson said she will save specific details about her differences with Hearst for the January trial.

“How much was self-serving, and how much was melodrama?” Olson said of Hearst’s account during a wide-ranging, nearly hourlong speech. “Most of the SLA were killed in 1974. Others have gone on to lead quiet and productive lives.

“I guess the LAPD tries to write its version of the SLA’s history through Ms. Hearst’s crystal clear memory. She should remember--she was a member of the SLA.”

The talk was delivered to supporters who paid $10 each to help offset Olson’s legal expenses. It was held in the Women’s Center, a brightly painted building in the heart of the Mission District.

Olson’s topics ranged from slavery to campus unrest, and she quoted liberally from classic poets and authors.

Defense attorney Stuart Hanlon also spoke at the gathering. He challenged the credibility of an LAPD officer who was an alleged target of the bomb plot.