[Ppnews] Out-of-state parole approved for last of imprisoned SLA members

Wed Apr 29 10:28:14 EDT 2009

2 mainstream stories follow

Last SLA Inmate Cleared for Parole in Illinois

By THE ASSOCIATED PRESS
http://www.google.com/hostednews/ap/article/ALeqM5gn6PBzBM-9bycwx1yeJe3BWxWEAAD97ROG9G0
Filed at 9:41 p.m. ET

SACRAMENTO, Calif. (AP) -- The last imprisoned member of the 
1970s-era 
<http://topics.nytimes.com/top/reference/timestopics/organizations/s/symbionese_liberation_army/index.html?inline=nyt-org>Symbionese 
Liberation Army has been cleared to serve his parole in Illinois 
after his release next month from a California prison, corrections 
officials said Tuesday.

James Kilgore, 61, is completing a six-year sentence at High Desert 
State Prison in Susanville for his role in the murder of Myrna 
Opsahl, a mother of four who was killed during a 1975 bank robbery in 
Carmichael, a Sacramento suburb.

California corrections spokeswoman Terry Thornton said Illinois 
authorities have agreed to supervise Kilgore for a year. Federal 
authorities have approved his transfer to Illinois, where he will be 
supervised as part of a federal term he completed after being 
convicted of charges related to his years with the SLA and fleeing the country.

Another SLA fugitive, 
<http://topics.nytimes.com/top/reference/timestopics/people/o/sara_jane_olson/index.html?inline=nyt-per>Sara 
Jane Olson, was released from prison last month and allowed to return 
to her home in St. Paul, Minn.

The Symbionese Liberation Army was a band of radicals from mostly 
middle-class backgrounds that sought to foment revolution and 
overthrow the government. Best known for the 1974 kidnapping of 
newspaper heiress 
<http://topics.nytimes.com/top/reference/timestopics/people/h/patricia_hearst/index.html?inline=nyt-per>Patricia 
Hearst, it claimed responsibility for assassinating Oakland Schools 
Superintendent Marcus Foster and was involved in a shootout with Los 
Angeles police officers that killed five SLA members.

Kilgore's wife moved to Illinois after her husband was arrested in 
2002 in South Africa after nearly three decades on the run. She 
teaches at the 
<http://topics.nytimes.com/top/reference/timestopics/organizations/u/university_of_illinois/index.html?inline=nyt-org>University 
of Illinois in Champaign.

While on the lam, Kilgore became a University of Cape Town professor 
under the alias of Charles William Pape.

He served his state prison term after completing a 4 1/2-year federal 
prison sentence for using a deceased baby's birth certificate to 
obtain a passport and for possession of a pipe bomb that federal 
authorities said they found in his Daly City apartment in 1975.

The Los Angeles City Council approved a resolution Tuesday opposing 
Kilgore's out-of-state transfer.

The Los Angeles Police Protective League and the National Association 
of Police Organizations, which objected to the transfer, lobbied 
California and Illinois officials to deny his request.

''This is where he committed his crimes,'' the league's president, 
Paul Weber, said in a statement. ''Kilgore would be better monitored 
in California during his parole because the state has a stronger 
interest in the case.''

Kilgore's attorney, Louis Freeman, did not immediately return a phone 
message Tuesday.
*************************************************

<http://latimesblogs.latimes.com/lanow/2009/04/sla-parolee-kilgore.html>Out-of-state 
parole approved for last of imprisoned SLA members

http://latimesblogs.latimes.com/lanow/2009/04/sla-parolee-kilgore.html

5:09 PM | April 28, 2009

The last remaining member of the former Symbionese Liberation Army 
still in prison has been cleared to serve 
<http://latimesblogs.latimes.com/lanow/2009/03/sla-redux.html>supervised 
parole in Illinois beginning next month, when he is scheduled to be 
released from custody, officials said Tuesday.

James Kilgore, 61, was sentenced to six years in prison after 
pleading guilty to second-degree murder in the death of Myrna Opsahl 
during the April 21, 1975, robbery of Crocker National Bank in 
Carmichael, Calif.

Kilgore had asked officials at the California Department of 
Corrections and Rehabilitation to allow him supervised parole in 
Illinois after his scheduled release next month from High Desert 
State Prison in Susanville.

Corrections spokeswoman Terry Thornton said Tuesday that Kilgore's 
request has been approved by California, Illinois and the federal 
government in connection with the bank robbery and a federal 
conviction on explosives charges.

"He has to comply with conditions of three different entities," Thornton said.

The decision to grant supervised parole to the former SLA member has 
again drawn fire from the Los Angeles Police Protective League, the 
union representing 9,800 Los Angeles police officers. The 
organization was highly 
<http://www.latimes.com/news/local/la-me-olson10-2009mar10,0,2190172.story>criticalof 
the decision to release former SLA member Sara Jane Olson, who is now 
serving 
<http://www.latimes.com/news/local/la-me-sara-jane-olson18-2009mar18,0,6830812.story>supervised 
parole in Minnesota.

"Kilgore would be better monitored in California during his parole 
because the state has a stronger interest in the case," said Paul M. 
Weber, president of the L.A. police union.

The former honors student and UC Santa Barbara graduate participated 
in the SLA's radical activities in the 1970s and was one of the 
nation's most wanted fugitives for a quarter-century before he was 
arrested in Cape Town, South Africa.

Similar to Olson, who refashioned herself from radical Katherine 
Soliah into a Midwestern soccer mom, Kilgore became a university 
professor under an assumed name, Charles William Pape.

He eventually was sentenced to six years in prison. During his stint 
behind bars, he was transferred to federal custody and served time 
for federal explosives and passport fraud convictions.

--Andrew Blankstein

Freedom Archives
522 Valencia Street
San Francisco, CA 94110

415 863-9977

www.Freedomarchives.org  
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