..and this story even has the B*mb word in it...
Judge Sets Trial Date for Olson's
Attorneys
Court: The bombing
suspect's lawyers are accused of disclosing
the addresses of two
police officer witnesses.
By TWILA DECKER, Times
Staff Writer
The two defense
attorneys in the conspiracy trial of alleged
Symbionese Liberation
Army member Sara Jane Olson are
scheduled to go on trial
next month on charges they violated state
law by allegedly
disclosing the addresses of two police officer
witnesses.
Superior Court Judge
William Ryan on Monday set a July 30
trial for Tony Serra and
Shawn Chapman, although Chapman is
seeking to have the
charges against her dismissed because she
claims she did not draft
or file the document.
The misdemeanor
charges are likely to mean a further delay in the
long-postponed Olson
trial, which has been continued five times
and now is scheduled to
begin in September.
Deputy City Atty.
Edward Gauthier told the judge Monday that
his office is
considering dropping charges against Chapman, but
wants to meet with her
attorney first.
Chapman's attorney,
Dean Masserman, said Gauthier wants
assurances from Chapman
that she will not interfere with Serra's
prosecution by changing
her account and trying to take the blame
for the document after
her charges are dropped.
Ryan postponed
Chapman's arraignment until Friday. He urged
Gauthier to decide
before then and warned everyone involved that
he would not try the
cases against the attorneys piecemeal. Serra
pleaded not guilty to
the charges two weeks ago.
"I want to make it
very clear that these cases are going to be tried
together, not
separately," Ryan said.
The California Bar
Assn. also is investigating complaints against
Chapman and Serra.
Olson, who was
arrested in June 1999 in St. Paul, Minn., after
more than two decades in
hiding, is charged with conspiring in
1975 to kill the two Los
Angeles police officers, John Hall and
James Bryan, by placing
bombs under two squad cars. The bombs
did not detonate.
The officers'
addresses and phone numbers were placed in a
document that attorneys
are required to file under seal because it
contained identifying
witness information. The document was
posted on a Web site
created to generate money for Olson's defense.
Hall told the
former judge in the Olson case in November that he
was terrified after
finding out that his address had been posted on
the Internet. Hall also
complained to the bar association.
Chapman claims that
she was not involved in the filing or
Internet posting. Serra
claims that his secretary drew up the motion,
signed his name to it
and filed it. He said he was out of town at the
time.
The attorneys'
trial date was set after Superior Court Judge Larry
Paul Fidler, who is
presiding over the Olson trial, agreed earlier in
the day to delay
pretrial hearings in the Olson case until after the
misdemeanor case and the
bar investigation are resolved.
Although an appeals
court has delayed the Olson trial until
September, Fidler had
been given the go-ahead to conduct pretrial
hearings to determine
what evidence would be admissible at trial.
"It appears to me
that right now we're on hold," he said.
Fidler said he
would ask the bar association to inform him about
when it would complete
its investigation.
Fidler, however,
refused the defense attorneys' request to either
recuse them from the
Olson case or order that the misdemeanor
charges be dropped.
Fidler also refused the defense request to
recuse Deputy Dist.
Attys. Eleanor Hunter and Michael Latin.
Fidler said he saw
no conflict for the prosecutors, who are
potential witnesses in
the misdemeanor case. He agreed that the
misdemeanor charges and
bar investigation create some potential
conflict of interest
issues. But he said those conflicts would be
nonexistent if the two
probes are resolved before September,
regardless of their
outcomes.
Serra disagreed,
warning Fidler that if he's convicted he would
not go forward with the
Olson trial regardless of the consequences.
"If I'm convicted,
I'll never stay in this case," Serra said, who was
asked to elaborate on
his conflict concerns in a sealed court filing.
"You can do whatever you
want to me. I would be hurting [Olson if
I stayed]."
