1981 Brinks Armored Car Robbery Defendant May Soon Be Released
NEW CITY, N.Y. (CBSNewYork) -- One of the defendants convicted in the infamous Brinks robbery in Rockland County some 33 years ago could soon be released from prison.
Judith Alice Clark was sentenced to 75 years in prison for being the getaway driver in the Oct. 20. 1981 armored truck heist, which left a guard and two police officers dead.
Some of the robbers were involved with the Black Liberation Army, while others were former members of the Weather Underground radical group who had since joined up with the May 19th Communist Organization, according to published reports.
The group staged a broad daylight robbery on a Brinks armored car at the Nanuet Mall.
Guard Peter Paige was killed, and guard Joseph Trombino was seriously injured in the robbery.
Afterward, the group shot and killed two Nyack police officers – Edward J. O'Grady Jr. and Waverly Brown.
Clark and two others crashed a getaway vehicle, and all three were arrested at the scene, according to published reports.
Other defendants were apprehended, tried and convicted, in the subsequent five years.
The Rockland County District Attorney's office said paperwork arrived from Gov. Andrew Cuomo's office about a possible commutation of Clark's sentence. The DA's office said it will oppose her release.
Another convict, former Weather Underground member and getaway driver Kathy Boudin, became an adjunct professor at Columbia University after her release. But critics said the ex-con turned teacher used her position as a soapbox to push for the release of three people jailed for a deadly heist of a Brink's armored car.
Despite the controversy, Boudin remains on the adjunct faculty at the Columbia University School of Social Work.
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