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NEW YORK (AP) – Hours before leaving office, New York Governor Andrew Cuomo on Monday granted clemency to six people, including the driver of a deadly armored truck theft in 1981 whose release was defended by her son, San Francisco’s highest attorney.
David Gilbert, 76, is serving a life sentence for his role in Brink’s failed 1981 heist in upstate New York, a bloody heist involving left-wing revolutionaries that left a guard and two police dead.
He is among the last surviving people still trapped in the $ 1.6 million theft often seen as the last breath of ’60s radicalism.
Thanks to Cuomo’s action, he will be referred to the state parole board for potential release. Under his sentence, he would not have been eligible for parole until 2056. In a press release, Cuomo’s office said that during his incarceration, Gilbert made a significant contribution to education and training programs. AIDS prevention and worked as a tutor, law library clerk. , paralegal, teaching assistant and teaching assistant in various prison programs.
Gilbert’s son, San Francisco District Attorney Chesa Boudin, said his “heart was breaking and he was also in pain for the families of the three victims.”
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Republican Assembly Member Mike Lawler, who represents Rockland County, where the theft took place, criticized the governor’s action.
“Andrew Cuomo’s final act as governor is a disgusting betrayal of the people of Rockland County,” he said in a statement. “This year will mark the 40th anniversary of Brink’s robbery and rather than standing alongside the brave men and women of law enforcement, Andrew Cuomo has once again stabbed them in the back.”
Four men whose sentences were commuted Monday by Cuomo were in jail on murder convictions.
Cuomo also pardoned Lawrence Penn, a private equity fund manager who served two years for falsifying business records in connection with allegations he stole millions of dollars from investors.
Last week, Cuomo granted clemency to 10 people, including Jon-Adrian Velazquez, whose unsuccessful campaign to exonerate the 1998 murder of a retired New York City police officer was championed by the actor Martin Sheen.
Perhaps none of these cases had Brink’s heist fame.
Brink’s guard Peter Paige and Sgt. Edward O’Grady and Officer Waverly Brown of the Nyack Police Department were killed in the robbery and subsequent shootout at a nearby roadblock.
Gilbert, an unarmed runaway driver, has been charged with theft and murder because people were killed during the crime. He and two co-defendants presented themselves as freedom fighters and deemed their trial illegitimate. During a court hearing, Gilbert and co-accused Judith Clark raised their fists and shouted “Free the earth!” “
Clark was granted parole in 2019, three years after Cuomo commuted his sentence, noting his “exceptional progress in personal development.”
Gilbert’s fight for freedom gained attention when Boudin, who was only 14 months old when he went to jail, campaigned for the San Francisco district attorney last year.
Boudin ran a progressive campaign in which he said visiting his parents Kathy Boudin and Gilbert in prison showed him the criminal justice system was broken.
“On the eve of the birth of my first child, my father, David Gilbert, obtained clemency,†Boudin said in an email to The Associated Press. “Although he never used a gun or wanted to hurt anyone, my father’s crime caused untold damage and devastated the lives of many separate families. I will continue to keep these families in my heart.
Steve Zeidman, the lawyer and law professor who spearheaded Gilbert’s pardon campaign, said he was thrilled for Gilbert and his family.
“David has the opportunity to present his case to the board of trustees, an opportunity to live outside the prison walls,” said Zeidman, co-director of the Defenders Clinic at the City University of New Law School. York.
The director of the campaign for the release of the elderly in prison, Jose Saldana, celebrated the pardons but said there were many more who deserved to be released.
“Governor Kathy Hocuhl will inherit an indefensible racist and brutal prison system and we hope she will lead our state towards a more humane justice system,” Saldana said in a statement.
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