Patty Hearst Series Debuts This Weekend

BERKELEY, CA — A saga that began and ended in the San Francisco Bay Area, playing out on local TV news night after night, will again dominate the small screen. CNN has produced a series called "The Radical Story of Patty Hearst" based on the book, "American Heiress: The Wild Saga of the Kidnapping, Crimes and Trial of Patty Hearst." The show airs at 6 p.m. California time starting Sunday. The book was written by Jeffrey Toobin, CNN's chief legal analyst.

Born in San Francisco and raised in Hillsborough, Hearst was a sophomore at UC Berkeley when she was kidnapped from her Berkeley apartment on Feb. 4, 1974, by a radical group called the Symbionese Liberation Army (SLA). Hearst took part in several crimes while with the SLA, most notably a San Francisco bank robbery on April 15, 1974. The SLA claims she was radicalized. Hearst claims she was brainwashed.

Hearst was eventually arrested at a San Francisco apartment on Sept. 18, 1975, and put on trial. She was convicted of bank robbery and using a firearm during the commission of a felony. She was sentenced to seven years in prison, which was commuted to time served, 22 months, by President Jimmy Carter. She was pardoned by President Bill Clinton on Jan. 20, 2001, his last full day in office.

Hearst married her former bodyguard Bernard Shaw and had two children. Shaw and Hearst remained married for more than 30 years, until his death in 2013. They moved to the East Coast where Hearst lives the life of a wealthy heiress and philanthropist.

All of those details are undisputed, documented through decades of writing, including Hearst's own 1981 memoir, "Every Secret Thing." Hearst did not cooperate with Toobin or CNN on the creation of this book and series.

So what will the new CNN series explore? Toobin claims "terrorism, the role of the media, wealth and celebrity are as relevant today as they were more than 40 years ago."

And one fascinating tidbit that enmeshes the past with the present — in 2000, then U.S. Attorney for San Francisco Robert Mueller furiously opposed Hearst's request for a presidential pardon, writing: "I strongly oppose the pardon application filed by Patricia Hearst. The attitude of Hearst has always been that she is a person above the law and that, based on her wealth and social position, she is not accountable for her conduct, despite the jury's verdict."

Yes, that Robert Mueller — the special counsel into the investigation of Russian meddling in the 2016 presidential election.

— Photo: Patty Hearst, flanked by U.S. Marshals Janey Jimenez and John Brophy, Patty Hearst leaves the Federal building at San Francisco, Monday, April 13, 1976 hours after her sentencing on bank robbery by U.S. District Judge Oliver J. Carter. (AP Photo)