Getaway gal’s parole-nix suit
Former Weather Underground radical Judith Clark — who drove the getaway car in the infamous 1981 Brink’s robbery that killed two New York police officers and a security guard — is suing the state parole board for denying her release.
“The board’s decision elected to treat Ms. Clark as a symbol of crime rather than as an individual and an example of how a person can change and reform,” her Manhattan Supreme Court suit says.
The board denied Clark’s parole in April shortly after Gov. Cuomo, in a stunning move last December, made her eligible for the early release by commuting her 75years-to-life sentence to 35-years-to-life. The unanimous board ruling found Clark was “still a symbol of violent and terroristic crime” and that her release would be “incompatible with the welfare of society.”
Her next parole-board date for potential release is in April 2019.
Clark, 68, has been locked up for 36 years since her convictions for the felony murders of Nyack Police Officers Edward O’Grady and Waverly Brown and security guard Peter Paige in Nanuet.
Paige’s widow, Josephine, was upset by the news of Clark’s suit.
“For crying out loud,” the 77year-old New Hope, Pa., resident told The Post. “She doesn’t deserve to get out.”
But Clark says in court papers she has “accepted full responsibility for her actions.”
Michael Cardozo, Clark’s pro bono attorney, sees the best in her.
“She’s an extraordinary woman,” Cardozo said. “She got two master’s degrees, she’s a published poet, she’s done all these pro- grams to help prisoners. She trains puppies and security dogs. She’s helped women with AIDS. She’s given help to mothers who have kids in jail.
“Clearly she committed a terrible crime 36 years ago and equally clearly she has been rehabilitated, so what is the purpose of keeping her in jail?” the lawyer asked.
He said the parole-board members only gave him 89 pages of what they said were “boxes and boxes of letters” from law-enforcement officers and survivors opposing her release.
Cardozo believes the board members showed obvious “contempt” for Clark by calling her a member of a “terrorist SWAT team” and asking if she’d given birth to her daughter just 11 months before the robbery to breed “new soldiers” for her radical political cause.
The Weather Underground was a militant left-wing group bent on overthrowing the US government.
Clark is asking the court to vacate the board’s decision and order a new hearing. A parole-board spokesman said they don’t comment on “pending litigation.”