Biography
Kathy Boudin became a prominent figure in late–20th-century U.S. radical politics through antiwar and anti-racist activism and her role in the Weather Underground, which embraced militant tactics as part of its political program. After years underground, she was arrested in 1981 following a failed armored-truck robbery in which multiple people were killed; she later pleaded guilty to felony murder and robbery charges and served more than two decades in prison.
Following parole in 2003, Boudin became active in criminal-justice reform and reentry work, focusing on the long-term consequences of incarceration for families and communities. She remained engaged in public-facing advocacy and program-building until her death in 2022.
The April 13, 1984 Militant identifies Judge David Ritter as presiding over the joint Kathy Boudin and Samuel Brown Brink trial. It describes ongoing jury selection, defense objections to jurors with police or bank connections, and refusal to sever the cases. This identifies the trial judge, without independently identifying the later sentencing judge.
An FBI report dated October 1969 attributes to a source the late-evening October 2 arrests of Kathy Boudin, then SDS National Office staff in Chicago, and Robert H. Roth on mob-action and aggravated-battery accusations related to the September 24 confrontation near the Federal Building (NARA docid-32989647 PDF page 121). This earlier arrest is distinct from the 1981 Brink’s case. Other people in the paragraph are described only as subject to warrants, not as actually arrested. No additional custody duration or outcome is inferred.
FBI Chicago demonstration report, NARA docid-32989647, PDF p. 121.
Breakthrough’s Spring 1982 prisoner correspondence directory groups Solomon Brown, Kathy Boudin, Judy Clark and David Gilbert under the shared mailing address Pouch 1, Woodbourne, New York 12788. The original does not identify this as Woodbourne State Prison or individually establish where those four people were physically housed. This is retained solely as a historical correspondence reference; no institution, admission, transfer, release or duration is inferred from that shared postal address.
The bulletin individually names this defendant among four captured after the October 20, 1981 Nyack Brinks action and prints the committee’s solidarity declaration. The editorial presents the arrests as repression of the revolutionary movement. This is contemporary capture and defense context, without a new prosecution row, imposed sentence or completed custody total. The source prints Kathy Coudin in one passage; the known Nyack four and other explicit Boudin spelling resolve that typo.
Tip of the Iceberg, December 1981 (surviving twelve-page scan), PDF page 2.
The state policy report individually confirms arrest on October 20, 1981 and actual pretrial confinement in the Brink’s prosecution. Its security discussion distinguishes Rockland, Orange and Westchester trial arrangements and later prison custody from release. The body gives June 23, 1983 for transfer to Orange County while its chronology gives June 19; no exact transfer day is selected from this internal conflict. Transfers and court appearances are not discharges to freedom. The report separately dates her April 26, 1984 guilty plea and May 3 sentence of twenty years to life; the rejected hypothetical seventy-five-year alternative is not her actual sentence.
Report of the New York State Policy Study Group on Terrorism, November 1985, PDF page 41.
