Patty achieved some notoriety in 1974. She was the granddaughter of William Randolph “Rosebud” Hearst. At age 19, she was kidnapped by the Symbionese Liberation Army. Grandpa Hearst was the inspiration for the movie "Citizen Kane" by Orson Wells.
After allegedly being held in a small closet, abused and fed LSD, Patty joined the army with some enthusiasm and assumed the identity of “Tania”. Here she is shown holding a machine gun during a bank robbery.
Patty escaped the shootout in which most members of the SLA, including, Donald DeFreeze, died. Police fired over 9,000 rounds into the “safe house” where the SLA was hiding. Patty had been detained while shoplifting.
The SLA was a self-styled black liberation front, although only Donald DeFreeze was actually black. Don was known as Field Marshall Cinque. Most of the army consisted of white kids from upper-middle class families. They murdered two people and robbed a number of banks to finance their revolution.
Patty was sentenced to seven years for bank robberies. Her sentence was commuted to 21 months by President Carter based on the "Stockholm" theory. President Clinton granted her a full pardon in 2001 as he was leaving office.
The Hearst pardon in 2001 was somewhat overshadowed by the pardon of fugitive financier Marc Rich during Clinton's last day in office. Prior to the pardon, Rich's ex-wife Denise contributed an estimated $450,000 to the Clinton Presidential Library Fund, more than $1.1 million to the Democratic Party and at least $109,000 to Hillary Rodham Clinton's New York Senate campaign
No comments:
Post a Comment