BRINKS COP-SLAY GAL’S GOV LIFELINE
Clemency for radical outrages police, kin
In a bombshell move, Gov. Cuomo on Friday commuted the 75-year-to-life sentence of Judith Clark, the Weather Underground terrorist who was convicted in the 1981 Brinks robbery in which two Nyack cops and an armored-car driver were slain.
The governor’s clemency ruling will allow Clark, 67, to appear before the Parole Board to petition for her release in early 2017, meaning she could be freed after serving some 35 years behind bars.
Cuomo said Clark — whom he called a model prisoner — would not have been eligible for parole until she was 106 years old, “leaving her without an opportunity to appear before the Parole Board during her natural lifetime.”
Sources said Cuomo met with Clark, a getaway driver in the robbery, at her prison in September.
Law-enforcement officials and the widow of the murdered ar- mored car driver were furious.
“Clark should stay in prison the rest of her life. I miss my husband every day,” Josephine Paige, widow of Brinks guard Peter Paige, told The Post in a phone interview.
“I’m 77. I was 42 when I lost him. My children all miss their father. He was a good father and a good husband,” she said.
The Rockland PBA, as well as Undersheriff Robert Van Cura, who responded to the shooting as a South Nyack police officer, also expressed outrage. “The governor has shown disregard to the victims’ families,” said Van Cura.
He said the Rockland DA, law enforcement and the victims’ families will urge the Parole Board to deny Clark’s release.
But Edward J. O’Grady III, the son of slain Sgt. Edward O’Grady, told The New York Times that “the release of Judith Clark will take no more away from me and will bring no more hurt to my life.”
The other murdered officer was Waverly Brown.
Activists said Cuomo did the right thing.
“We applaud the governor for his heroic action,” said Allen Roskoff, who has long campaigned for Clark’s release.
Clark was convicted of seconddegree murder and first-degree robbery in 1983 for driving the getaway vehicle in the $1.6 million Rockland County robbery, a bra- zen crime that stunned the nation.
Clark’s co-defendant, Kathy Boudin, another getaway driver, received a minimum 20-year sentence in a plea bargain and was paroled in 2003.
Eight other defendants were sentenced to as little to 50 years to as much as life behind bars.
Others involved in the robbery included Black Liberation Army members Mutulu Shakur, the late Tupac Shakur’s father; Kuwasi Balagoon; Solomon Bouines; Samuel Smith; Sekou Odinga and Cecilio “Chui” Ferguson.
Weather Underground members included David Gilbert, who like Shakur is still in prison, and Marilyn Buck, who like Balagoon is dead.
Cuomo also for the first time pardoned 101 New Yorkers who were convicted of “non-violent” crimes when they were 16 or 17 years old and have not been in trouble with the law again for a decade.