LOS ANGELES -- Lawyers in a California conspiracy and attempted murder case are trying to introduce testimony that may shed new light on the kidnapping of newspaper heiress Patricia Hearst.
The testimony, the lawyers say, will indicate that Hearst planned her own kidnapping and willingly collaborated with her captors, the Symbionese Liberation Army. Hearst's lawyers would not comment on the claims.Lawyers for Sara Jane Olson -- formerly known as Kathleen Ann Soliah -- say they want to introduce testimony from Jack Scott, a former sports writer and a sympathizer with the radical movements of the 1970s. Scott, they say, will testify that he helped Hearst and SLA members William and Emily Harris go underground in the summer of 1974 when a nationwide manhunt for the trio was under way.
Olson, accused of planting two bombs under Los Angeles Police Department cars, is alleged to have introduced Scott to Hearst.
According to court papers seeking an early deposition from Scott, 57, who is dying of throat cancer and not expected to live until the trial begins, Scott told the FBI that Hearst confided many details of her involvement with the SLA, details that contradicted much of what she said and wrote about her experience.
Scott told the FBI that Hearst said she had arranged her own 1974 kidnapping as a way of breaking up with her fiancee, Steven Weed, without having to admit to her parents, who opposed the relationship, that they had been right in their judgment of the man.
Scott said Hearst told him the story during their cross-country trip from California to Pennsylvania where he helped Hearst and the Harris couple hide on a farm his family owned there.
FBI agents reported that Scott said Hearst told him that while she had fallen in love with Weed when he was a teacher at her high school, the relationship soured for Hearst after they moved in together.
"She was expected to work in the kitchen while Weed would snort cocaine and discuss philosophy in the living room with his friends," Scott told the FBI.
Hearst said that she arranged her abduction using her marijuana supplier, Nancy Ling Perry, as an intermediary. Perry was involved with SLA members.
"Hearst and Perry planned for the SLA to kidnap her because she (Hearst) knew that Weed would not protect her when she was kidnapped and she could use that as a reason to break up with him when she was released," Scott told the FBI.
The story of Hearst's kidnapping centered on her alleged "brainwashing" by her captors. After months of being locked in a closet, Hearst has said and written, she came to trust and believe the SLA and their plan to oppose the government and force a social revolution on behalf of the poor.
She went on to help the SLA and participated in a bank robbery in which a woman was killed and in the shooting up of a Los Angeles-area sporting goods store. Hearst was convicted of both crimes and sent to prison until her sentence was commuted.