22 Years on, 1960s Radical Wins Parole in New York
Once a member of the revolutionary Weather Underground group, Boudin, 60, can be released by Oct. 1, New York State's Division of Parole ruled on Wednesday.
Plans for where she will live and work must be approved by parole officials before she is released from the state's Bedford Hills Correctional Facility, said her attorney, Leonard Weinglass.
The Parole Board interviewed Boudin on Wednesday, and she learned of its decision later that day, said Weinglass, who told his client the news in a telephone call. "She was absolutely ecstatic and pleased and thankful," he said. "Obviously she was very excited."
Boudin pleaded guilty to second-degree murder in connection with the robbery of a Brink's truck in suburban Nanuet, north of New York City. A security guard and two police officers were shot dead by members of the Black Liberation Army, a splinter group of the Black Panthers, in the crime.
While in prison, Boudin helped develop programs for AIDS victims, incarcerated mothers and inmates seeking college degrees. She wants to live in New York City and do social work, possibly with AIDS patients, upon her release, Weinglass said. During the robbery on Oct. 21, 1981, Black Liberation Army members killed a guard and then transferred $1.6 million to another truck in which Boudin was waiting.
That vehicle was stopped by police as it approached the New York State Thruway. Boudin surrendered, but gunmen burst out of the truck and opened fire, killing two police officers, Reuters reported.
She was twice denied parole, first in 2001 when thousands of people signed petitions opposing her release and again in May of this year.
Boudin grew up in Manhattan, the daughter of leftist parents. In college, she became involved with Students for a Democratic Society and then its militant offshoot, the Weather Underground.
After 1970 she dropped out of mainstream society, adopting an assumed name after escaping an explosion in a Greenwich Village townhouse where other members of the Weather Underground were making bombs.