LOS ANGELES - Kathleen Soliah was released from a California prison after serving about half of her sentence for her role in a plot to blow up Los Angeles police cars.
Soliah, a former member of the radical Symbionese Liberation Army, must now serve a three-year parole, the Los Angeles Times reported Friday. Sentenced to 12 years, she earned credit toward release by working while incarcerated.
Soliah, originally from Palmdale, Calif., pleaded guilty to her role in a 1975 plot to kill Los Angeles police officers. She had gone underground for years, assuming the name Sara Jane Olson, marrying a physician and becoming a homemaker and mother of three in St. Paul, Minn., before her capture in 1999. She was captured after a segment of "America's Most Wanted."
Shawn Chapman Holley, Soliah's attorney, said, "We're thrilled she's out and can return to her family. For someone who was not a danger or a threat to society, it was six years too long."
Los Angeles police weren't so charitable.
Soliah "attempted to murder LAPD officers by bombing two police cars," said Tim Sands, president of the Police Protective League, representing the city's 9,300 officers, and should have been kept in prison.
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