Posted on 08/22/2003 10:13:54 AM PDT by hotpotato
The son of '60s radical Kathy Boudin says his mother wants to personally apologize to the relatives of the three men killed in an 1981 armored car heist when she is freed from prison in the next few weeks.
“She would very much like to have an opportunity to express her remorse,” Chesa Boudin said Thursday, shortly after talking to her by telephone at the Bedford Hills Correctional Facility. “She’s not been allowed to do that thus far.”
It was the first time he had spoken to his mother since she learned Wednesday that she had been granted parole after serving 22 years of a 20-year-to-life sentence for her role in the armored car heist.
“It’s a pretty overwhelmingly joyous moment,” said Chesa Boudin, who was celebrating his 23rd birthday Thursday and spoke to The Associated Press from his home in Chicago. “It’s quite a good birthday present.”
Chesa Boudin was 14 months old when his mother and father, David J. Gilbert, went to jail for their roles in the $1.6 million robbery at the Nanuet Mall in Rockland County.
Brink’s guard Peter Paige was killed and Nyack Police Sgt. Edward O’Grady and Officer Waverly Brown were gunned down at a roadblock in Nyack.
Gilbert drove the truck and Boudin sat in the passenger seat.
Kathy Boudin, the daughter of civil rights attorney Leonard Boudin and onetime member of the Weather Underground, was recruited by Black Liberation Army members and other radicals who apparently wanted to have white people driving the getaway vehicle to throw off pursuers.
She later pleaded guilty to felony murder and robbery. Gilbert was convicted of murder.
Chesa Boudin got to know his parents through letters, telephone calls and prison visits that ranged from twice a month to once a year.
When he was younger, he said, he was angry and hurt that he had to be raised without his parents.
He was raised by two of his parents’ friends in New York and Chicago, and attended Yale University, volunteering in Connecticut prison reform programs. He graduated in May and on Oct. 1 — the day of his mother’s scheduled release — is scheduled to leave for Oxford University as a Rhodes Scholar.
He said he drew from his mother’s example as a prison educator with his community service.
Kathy Boudin, now 60, helped develop a prison center where mothers could visit their children, mentored inmates’ teen-age children and volunteered in the prison’s AIDS education programs, said Leslie Pilder, who met Boudin while she worked as a prison volunteer.
Boudin plans to work in AIDS-related research when she leaves prison and live with friends in Brooklyn, according to her lawyer, Leonard Weinglass, who said he hoped to get her out before Oct. 1.
Pilder, a member of a group called Rocklanders Supporting Parole for Kathy Boudin, said that Boudin was a model prisoner who helped many other inmates turn their lives around after their release.
“She’s an extraordinary human being who did a terrible thing a long time ago, and that’s not who she is anymore,” Pilder said.
Chesa Boudin said his next goal is to see his father freed from prison. David Gilbert is serving a 75-years-to-life prison term at Attica Correctional Facility. Although technically eligible for parole in 2056, the sentence is essentially a life term.
Boudin said his mother has earned her freedom. “This is how the prison system is supposed to work,” he said.
The family of the victims have said to date, they have received no apology from her. I guess she'll give it to them when she is freed.
There are lots of "save Kathy" sites with celebrity endorsements (championing causes like this is a spit in the face of the civilized society that makes a celebrity a celebrity, imo). Here's one put up by the family of the officers slain by the weathermen and tells a different story than what Kathy would have you believe. She considers herself a "political prisoner."
btw, another report revealed that the "friends" who raised her son were also weathermen.
Wondering if Ms. Boudin has ever sent letters of regret and apology to the victims families during her 'time' in prison.
Methinks that might be a good answer to the apology.
Brought to mind the scene in the movie 'Airplane' where all of the passengers were lining up to slap the hysterical woman.
With this *itch, it would be a looooong line.
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