Kathy Boudin

Kathy Boudin (born May 19, 1943) is an American far left radical who was convicted in 1984 of felony murder for her participation in an armed robbery that resulted in the killing of two police officers and a security guard. She was released from prison in 2003. She is currently an adjunct professor at Columbia University.

Early life and Childhood

Kathy Boudin attended kindergarten at the Little Red School House and its high school, the Elisabeth Irwin High School in Manhattan. Although she went to Bryn Mawr College intending to prepare for medical school, her interests quickly turned to politics. 1965, her last year at Bryn Mawr was spent studying in the Soviet Union. She was paid 75 rubles a month by the Soviet government and, according to her résumé, taught on a Soviet collective farm. Kathy Boudin also attended receptions and functions with her parents at the Cuban Mission to the United Nations in New York. She also attended Case Western Reserve University School of Law for one year.^{[citation needed]}

Weather Underground

In the 1960s and 1970s, Boudin became heavily involved with the Weather Underground. The Weathermen (members of Weather Underground) bombed the Pentagon, the United States Capitol, the New York Police Benevolent Association, the New York Board of Corrections, as well as the offices of multinational companies. Boudin, along with Cathy Wilkerson, was a survivor of the 1970 Greenwich Village townhouse explosion, the premature detonation of a nail bomb that had been intended for a soldiers' dance at Fort Dix, New Jersey. Boudin was 27 at the time. Both women were awaiting trial, out on bond for their alleged actions in Days of Rage in Chicago several months earlier. Wilkerson had been released on a $20,000 bond and Boudin was out on a $40,000 bond.

A declassified FBI report on foreign contacts of the Weather Underground Organization produced by the FBI’s Chicago Field Office reported that, "On February 10, 1976, a source in a position to possess such information advised that Leonard Boudin ... had indicated to a friend that Kathie [sic] was presently in Cuba."^{[citation needed]} The law firm of Rabinowitz, Boudin, Standard, Krinsky & Lieberman, P.C., provide legal representation for the Cuban government in the United States.

1981 Brink's Robbery

Main article: Brink's robbery (1981)

In 1981, when Kathy Boudin was 38 years old, she and several members of the Weather Underground and the Black Liberation Army robbed a Brink's armored car at the Nanuet Mall, in Nanuet, New York. After Boudin dropped her infant son, Chesa, at a babysitter's, she took the wheel of the getaway vehicle, a U-Haul truck. She waited in a nearby parking lot as her heavily armed accomplices took another vehicle to a local mall where the Brink's truck was making a pick-up. They confronted the guards and gunfire immediately broke out, severely wounding guard Joe Trombino and killing his partner, Peter Paige. The four then took $1.6 million in cash and rejoined Boudin.

An alert college student called the police after spotting the gang abandoning their vehicle and entering the U-Haul. Two policeman spotted and pulled over the U-Haul, but they were expecting black males, and could only see Boudin - a white female - in the driver's seat. She got out of the cab, and raised her hands. Another police car with two officers quickly arrived on the scene.

The police officers who caught them testified that Boudin, feigning innocence, pleaded with them to put down their guns and got them to drop their guard; Boudin said she remained silent, that the officers relaxed spontaneously.

After the police lowered their guns, six men armed with automatic weapons emerged from the back of the truck, and began firing upon the four police officers, one of whom, Waverly Brown, was killed instantly. Officer Edward O'Grady lived long enough to empty his revolver, but as he reloaded, he was shot several times with an M16 rifle. Ninety minutes later, he died in the hospital. The other two officers escaped with minor injuries.

Boudin and David Gilbert, a Weatherman radical and the father of Boudin's infant son, allegedly acted as decoys as well as getaway drivers.

The occupants of the U-Haul scattered, some climbing into another getaway car, others carjacking a nearby motorist while Boudin attempted to flee on foot. An off-duty corrections officer, Michael J. Koch, apprehended her shortly after the shootout. When she was arrested, Boudin gave her name as Barbara Edson.

Weathermen Gilbert, Samuel Brown, and Judith Alice Clark crashed their car while making a sharp turn, and were arrested by police. Three Black Liberation Army members also failed to escape that day. Two days later, Samuel Smith and Nathaniel Burns were spotted in a car in New York. After a gunfight with police that left Smith dead, Burns was captured. Three more participants were arrested several months later.

The majority of the defendants received three consecutive sentences of 25-years-to-life, making them eligible for parole in the year 2058. Boudin hired Leonard Weinglass to defend her. Weinglass, a law partner of Boudin's father, arranged for a plea bargain and Boudin pled guilty to one count of felony murder and robbery, in exchange for one 20-years-to-life sentence.

Prison

Boudin was incarcerated in the Bedford Hills Correctional Facility for Women in New York where she worked with AIDS patients and in adult education. While there, she had a central role in creating five formal programs:

Boudin and Gilbert's son Chesa Boudin was adopted by former Weatherman leaders Bill Ayers and Bernardine Dohrn.

Parole

Boudin was granted parole on August 20, 2003 in her third parole hearing, and released from Bedford Hills Correctional Facility on September 17, 2003. She accepted a job in the H.I.V./AIDS Clinic at St. Luke's-Roosevelt Hospital Center, meeting the work provisions of parole that required active job prospects.

In May 2004, after her parole, Boudin published in the Fellowship of Reconciliation's publication Fellowship. Subsequently, she received an Ed. D. from Columbia University Teachers College. In addition to her work at St. Luke's-Roosevelt, Dr. Boudin has worked as a consultant to the Osborne Association in the development of a Longtermers Responsibility Project taking place in the New York State Correctional Facilities utilizing a restorative practice approach. She has also consulted for Vermont Corrections, the Women’s Prison Association, and supervises social workers.

She is presently an adjunct professor at Columbia University School of Social Work, a controversial appointment.

External links

• Memorial Page for Sgt. Edward J. O'Grady Jr.
• Memorial Page for Police Officer Waverly L. Brown
• http://murderpedia.org/female.B/b/boudin-kathy.htm

Further reading

• New York Times - Topics: Kathy Boudin collected news stories including commentary and archival articles since 1983
  • New York Times; October 1, 2006; It has been a quarter-century since a group of self-styled freedom fighters, including Judith A. Clark, carried out an armored-car robbery in Rockland County, New York. The holdup was a final eruption of Vietnam-era extremism and a shattering event for Rockland County, which lost two local police officers and a Brinks guard.
  • New York Times; September 6, 2003; Housing Complicates Boudin's Release. When Kathy Boudin was granted parole last month after 22 years in prison for her role in a 1981 armored-car robbery and shootout that left three dead, her supporters thought it would be just a matter of days before she gained freedom.
• Letter from Kathy Boudin '65 Bryn Mawr alumnae bulletin, letter written in 2001 after she had been incarcerated for 19 years
• Elizabeth Kolbert, "The Prisoner" The New Yorker, July 16, 2001
• Editorial, "Kathy Boudin's Time" The Nation, September 15, 2003
• Review of Family Circle The Nation, January 5, 2004
• “A Family Circle From Hell” 26 Thomas Jefferson Law Review 409 (2004), a review written by Arthur Austin
• Abby Luby, "Kathy Boudin's Impact" Bedford Record-Review, September 2005
• Final archive of defunct Kathy Boudin website, with articles, letters supporting parole, Curriculum Vitae, etc.
• Family Circle: The Boudins and the Aristocracy of the Left by Susan Braudy, Anchor, 2004, ISBN 978-1-4000-7748-9