Sara Jane Olson petitions to withdraw her guilty plea

LOS ANGELES (AP) -- Sara Jane Olson has filed a petition asking to withdraw her guilty plea and go to trial on charges of attempting to blow up Los Angeles police cars in the 1970s, the Los Angeles Times reported.

Olson, who pleaded guilty just last month to aiding and abetting a plot by the radical Symbionese Liberation Army to murder police officers, filed the petition under seal in Los Angeles Superior Court on Tuesday, the head of the Sara Jane Olson Defense Fund told the Times.

"I think she did it because she gave the plea under a lot of pressure, and she doesn't feel good about it," Mary Sutton was quoted in Wednesday's newspaper.

District Attorney spokeswoman Sandi Gibbons said Tuesday night she was not aware such a petition had been filed. Olson's lawyers did not immediately return calls for comment.

Deputy District Attorney Mike Latin told the Times prosecutors were prepared to go to trial.

"In the event the plea is withdrawn, we're ready to go and eager to let the evidence come out," he said.

Olson entered her surprise guilty plea to the bombing charge on Oct. 31 after years of maintaining her innocence.

Then, minutes after pleading guilty, she told reporters outside court she was innocent of the plot allegedly hatched by the SLA in retaliation for a deadly shootout with Los Angeles police. She only pleaded guilty, she said, because she didn't believe she could receive a fair trial after the Sept. 11 terrorist attacks.

Olson, 54, had been a fugitive in the case for more than 20 years until she was arrested in Minnesota in 1999 where she was living quietly as the wife of a doctor and mother of three children. She had changed her name from Kathleen Soliah.

Her declaration of innocence led Superior Court Judge Larry Paul Fidler to call an unusual hearing last week in which he asked her to reaffirm her plea or withdraw it.

"The guilty plea is not a waystation on the way to a press conference to claim one's innocence," he said.

Olson then told the judge: "I want to make it clear, your honor, I did not make that bomb. I did not possess that bomb. I did not plant that bomb. But under the concept of aiding and abetting I do plead guilty."

"Because you are guilty of the crimes?" the judge asked her.

"Yes," she said.

Olson, who is scheduled to be sentenced Dec. 7, could face 20 years to life if her guilty plea stands. Her lawyers had said, however, that they expected her to serve about five years.