Kathy Boudin, formerly imprisoned radical leftist and mother of San Francisco D.A. Chesa Boudin, dies

Other members of the group shot and killed a Brink’s guard, Peter Paige, before killing two Nyack, N.Y. police officers, Waverly Brown and Edward O’Grady.

Gilbert and Kathy Boudin, acting as the unarmed driver and passenger in the getaway van, were each charged and convicted under New York’s felony murder law, which allows all participants in a felony that leads to a death to be charged with murder, even if they were not directly responsible for the killings.

Chesa Boudin, who was 14 months old at the time of the fatal robbery and was left with a babysitter, was raised in Chicago by the leaders of the Weather Underground, Bernardine Dohrn and Bill Ayers.

While Kathy Boudin took a plea deal that allowed her to be paroled in 2003, Gilbert refused counsel, took the case to trial and was sentenced to 75 years to life in prison.

During her parole hearing, Kathy Boudin told commissioners that she had a “completely distorted and disturbed view” when she agreed to take part in the robbery, according to a 2003 piece in the New York Times. Her actions, she said, were motivated by guilt for being white and from a privileged background, and because she felt she hadn’t done enough to help support poor Black neighborhoods.

Kathy Boudin told the commissioners she accepted full responsibility for the deaths.

“I think that I was completely out of touch with what were ways to help communities and people. I think it was completely wrong,” Kathy Boudin said in a WNYC interview shortly before her parole.

Kathy Boudin was a fugitive when she was arrested for the Brinks robbery. She’d fled from an explosion in 1970 at a Manhattan town house where the Weathermen made bombs. The daughter of left-wing civil liberties lawyer Leonard Boudin, Kathy Boudin had grown up in a home in which law and politics were debated.

While imprisoned, she taught literacy programs, helped gather funding for college programming in the jail, worked with fellow inmates who were HIV-positive, and earned her master’s degree in adult education.

“She always ended phone calls with a laugh, a habit acquired during the 22 years of her incarceration, when she wanted to leave every person she spoke with, especially me, with joy and hope,” Chesa Boudin said. “She lived redemption, constantly finding ways to give back to those around her.”

Supporters argued for her release, saying she had expressed remorse and worked to give back to society. Letty Cottin Pogrebin, a founding editor of Ms. magazine, told the New York Times in 2003 when Kathy Boudin was released that “she paid a very heavy price for a very foolish move when she was young and idealistic, and she had deep remorse. … She has suffered enormously and has been a model prisoner.”

But others, including law enforcement groups and the relatives of those who were killed, fought her release over the years.

Former state Assembly Member Alexander Gromack, a Rockland County Republican, said in 2001 after she was denied parole, “While she may not have pulled the trigger herself, the blood of those three men still stains her hands.”

Edward O’Grady’s widow, Diane, told the New York Post in 2003, after Kathy Boudin was denied parole earlier, that “justice prevailed,” adding “she played a very pivotal part in that crime. Nine children were left without their fathers. We want her to serve life.”

Upon her release, Kathy Boudin accepted a job with the St. Luke’s Hospital HIV/AIDS Center, where she helped create programs for women.

Gilbert was granted clemency last year by outgoing New York Gov. Andrew Cuomo, and was released from prison on parole in November.

Kathy Boudin and Gilbert reunited immediately after Gilbert’s release, Chesa Boudin said.

“My dad was here with her every day,” Chesa Boudin said.

After more than two decades of incarceration, Kathy Boudin became the co-director and co-founder of Columbia University’s Center for Justice, where her work focused on the criminal justice system and the harm caused by mass incarceration.

At a San Francisco rally on Sunday, longtime political activist Angela Davis called Kathy Boudin “one of my oldest friends.”

Davis said the two had worked against the prison industrial complex since Kathy was released from prison.

“I think it is in a way symbolic that she decided to depart on this day,” Davis said, referring to May Day.

Geraldine Downey, director of Columbia’s Center for Justice, said seven formerly incarcerated students will celebrate their graduations this month “as a fitting tribute to Kathy’s effort to ensure college access to people with a criminal conviction.”

“Her influence will be felt for years to come in our work and the efforts of so many others,” Downey said in a statement.

Chesa Boudin, who is facing a potential recall on June 7, has frequently talked about how his experience growing up with incarcerated parents shaped his view of the criminal justice system. He’s pledged to work on ending mass incarceration and on diverting more people into treatment programs. Opponents have argued he’s been too lenient and mismanaged the District Attorney’s Office.

“My earliest memories are going through prison gates to visit my parents,” Boudin said in a 2019 interview with The Chronicle. “It’s something that’s dramatically and profoundly shaped really every moment of my life.”

Kathy Boudin is also survived by her brother, Michael Boudin; daughter-in-law, Valerie Block; grandson, Aiden Block Boudin; and Chesa Boudin’s brothers, Zayd and Malik Dohrn, and their families.