United States Attorney Kevin V. Ryan for the Northern District of California announced that Symbionese Liberation Army (SLA) member James William Kilgore was sentenced to 48 months in federal prison for a 1975 bomb offense as well as a consecutive six months in federal prison for passport fraud connected to multiple fraudulent passports obtained by the defendant using the identity of a deceased child.  

Mr. Kilgore, age 56, had been a fugitive for 26 years when he was apprehended in South Africa in November 2002.  He was arrested based on a 1976 federal Indictment in San Francisco for possession of an illegal explosive device.  After being transported to the Northern District of California in late December 2002, Mr. Kilgore pled guilty in 2003 to separate bomb and passport charges. In addition, on May 13, 2003, Mr. Kilgore pled guilty to second-degree murder in Sacramento County Superior Court for the shooting death of a bank customer in an April 1975 bank robbery in Carmichael, California. He is scheduled to be sentenced in state court for that offense on May 10, 2004.

Mr. Kilgore, who is originally from Oregon and the San Francisco Bay Area,  participated in two SLA bank robberies and a SLA bombing campaign directed against police officers in the San Francisco Bay Area and Los Angeles, California.  Mr. Kilgore became a fugitive after the arrest of fellow SLA members Emily and William Harris, Steven Soliah, Wendy Yoshimura, and Patricia Hearst on September 18, 1975.  Three days later, a mover hired by Mr. Kilgore to move his possessions from his Daly City apartment, found a pipe bomb or improvised explosive device (IED) and a pistol in a basket in the front hall closet, and daily notified the police.  Mr. Kilgore's fingerprints were found on the explosive device and on bomb manuals found in the apartment of fellow bomb maker Kathleen Soliah, now known as Sara Jane Olsen.

Mr. Kilgore and Ms. Soliah fled to the Milwalkee, Minnesota-St. Paul, Wisconsin areas where Mr. Kilgore first obtained a false United States passport in the name of Charles William Paper, who was in fact a deceased 10-month old infant.  Mr. Kilgore's second renewal of the Paper passport at the U.S. Consulate in South Africa in 1994 forms the basis of the 2002 Indictment charging Mr. Kilgore with passport fraud.

United States Attorney Kevin V. Ryan, who personally participated in the prosecution of the case, said "Let it be clear that we will never forget, nor tire, in our efforts to bring to justice those who plan or perpetrate terrorist acts against us.  The apprehension of James Kilgore in South Africa nearly three decades after he participated in the violent activities of the Symbionese Liberation Army demonstrates that this is so.  We will not allow the passage of time to deter us from bringing to justice any terrorist, whether domestic or foreign." 

The prosecution is the result of a lengthy investigation by the Federal Bureau of Investigation.  Assistant U.S. Attorney Dennis Michael Nerney prosecuted the case.

All press inquiries to the U.S. Attorney's Office should be directed to Assistant U.S. Attorney Matthew J. Jacobs at (415) 436-7181.