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Olson files motion to rescind guilty plea

Olson

LOS ANGELES, California (CNN) -- Claiming her innocence, convicted Symbionese Liberation Army member Sara Jane Olson filed a motion under seal Tuesday to withdraw her guilty plea for two counts of possessing bombs with intent to kill, CNN has learned.

The motion is the latest episode in Olson's legal saga in which she has angered the judge by telling the court one story and the news media a different one.

Sandi Gibbons, a spokeswoman for the Los Angeles District Attorney's Office, said their office has "not seen any documents and we do not know if anything has been filed."

"We have said all along that if for some reason the plea were set aside, we're ready to start jury selection," she said. "We're ready to go to trial right now. Our evidence is overwhelming against her."

A source close to the case told CNN the motion was indeed filed.

Last week, Judge Larry Fidler accepted Olson's guilty plea at a hearing. He had ordered the hearing a week earlier after Olson pleaded guilty and then proclaimed her innocence outside court to members of the news media, saying she had agreed to the plea for fear of not getting a fair trial in wake of the September 11 terror attacks.

Fidler grilled Olson in the latest hearing, asking her if she was indeed guilty of the two counts of possessing bombs in 1975 with intent to kill Los Angeles police officers that she had agreed to plead to.

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"Under the concept of aiding and abetting, I plead guilty," Olson told the judge after spending much of the hearing sighing heavily and rolling her eyes.

She also said she did not make the bombs or plant them.

Fidler asked her if she was pleading guilty, "because you are, in fact, guilty?"

"Yes," Olson replied.

Olson's lawyers had hoped that she would only serve about three to five years in prison as a result of the plea, but Fidler reiterated she could face 20 years to life per the terms described by a law passed in 1975.

She was to be sentenced on December 7.

Currently free on $1 million bail, Olson -- who was named in the indictment by her real name, Kathleen Soliah -- was charged with planting bombs under patrol cars in 1975, in an attempt to murder Los Angeles police officers. The action allegedly was in retaliation for the deaths of six SLA members in a police shootout the year before.

Olson had been on the run for more than 20 years until she was captured in Minnesota two years ago. Her arrest stunned many in the community who had described her as an upstanding citizen and wonderful mother of three children.