Ex-Fugitive Power Wants To Sell Her Story To Pay Legal Fees

Katherine Power says she doesn’t want to profit from the story of how she evaded the FBI for 23 years following one of the most infamous crimes of the Vietnam anti-war movement.

She told a newspaper recently that her interest in protecting free speech led her to appeal a judge’s order that she not profit from her role in a bank robbery that claimed the life of a Boston police officer. Power surrendered last year to Boston police.

She had lived since the late 1970s in the Willamette Valley, where she worked in restaurants and lived most recently in Lebanon with her husband and son.

Power has been in prison since October 1993, when a judge sentenced her to eight to 12 years for being a driver in the 1970 fatal bank robbery.

He also ordered that she not benefit financially from the sale of her story.

From a prison in Framingham, Mass., Power told The RegisterGuard that if she wins the appeal, any money above $200,000 in attorney fees would go to charity.

“If I win on appeal, I probably will sell the story rights to a reputable producer,” she said. “I will do that for one reason. I have attorney bills. My attorneys expect payment. I feel obligated to meet that.

“I believe there is an important story to tell. People’s life stories are an important way we learn.

“I don’t need vindication. There is no way I can say it was OK to be involved in an action that resulted in violence toward anyone. Even though I was very, very wrong, I was also trying to do something right.”

Power’s prosecutor said profit is Power’s motive.

Assistant Suffolk County District Attorney John Zanini said Power cannot claim she is gagged by the judge’s order because she has already granted interviews to news media in New York and Boston and has been on high-profile TV news shows.

Zanini, who argued the state’s case on appeal Dec. 6 before a five-judge panel of the Supreme Judicial Court of Massachusetts, said Power and her lawyers are insincere in their claim of defending free speech.

He contends the judge’s order allows Power to sell her story to anyone, so long as any payment goes to charity or to the victim’s family.

“To say there is a free speech issue, I don’t think that’s true. Obviously, she has not been chilled from speaking,” Zanini said. “The question then becomes what is the appeal about? From our perspective, the question is: Can she make a profit?”