Former SLA fugitive to plead guilty to explosive, forgery charges
Monday February 10, 2003By DAVID KRAVETS
AP Legal Affairs Writer
SAN FRANCISCO (AP) James Kilgore, the former Symbionese Liberation Army member who evaded authorities for decades, is expected to plead guilty later this month to federal explosives and forgery charges, lawyers in the case said Monday.
Kilgore, appearing for the third time in court after being extradited from South Africa, was part of the 1970s radical group that kidnapped newspaper heiress Patricia Hearst. He was charged with possession of a pipe bomb that authorities said they found in his Daly City apartment in 1976, and of obtaining a passport under a false name in 1994.
Kilgore, 55, faces a maximum 10 years in prison for the bomb charge and another five for allegedly using a fake name to obtain a passport.
He is expected to plead guilty in federal court here Feb. 21, prosecutors and his attorney said.
Federal prosecutors said the expected pleas, which were scheduled to be entered Monday but delayed because of scheduling problems, will come without any deal for a reduced sentence.
``There are no plea agreements,'' said C. Donald Clay, first assistant U.S. attorney in San Francisco.
Gregor Guy-Smith, Kilgore's attorney, asked U.S. District Judge Marilyn Hall Patel to schedule the Feb. 21 court appearance. ``One would hope'' guilty pleas are made that day, Guy-Smith told reporters afterward. He declined further comment.
Kilgore also faces murder charges in state court in Sacramento County for an SLA bank robbery in 1975 in which 42-year-old housewife Myrna Opsahl was killed while depositing a church collection.
Kilgore is the last known former SLA member to surface from hiding.
Four other SLA members pleaded guilty in November to Opsahl's murder in a plea deal in which they will get no more than eight years each. They are expected to be sentenced Friday.
South African authorities arrested Kilgore Nov. 8, one day after their guilty pleas.
The former fugitive, who is being held without bail, was working as a University of Cape Town professor and activist under the name Charles William Pape.
Married to an American in South Africa and the father of two sons, Kilgore grew up in Marin County and graduated from the University of California, Santa Barbara, in 1969 before associating himself with the notorious and violent SLA.
The SLA revolutionary group, born in California of the anti-Vietnam War movement, achieved notoriety for killing an Oakland school superintendent in November 1973 and for kidnapping Hearst in 1974.
The federal cases are United States v. Kilgore, 79-0492 and 02-0393.
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Editors: David Kravets has been covering state and federal courts for a decade.
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