Reckoning Day

Brink's trio found guilty

"We are at war and have no respect for the laws, the verdict or the sentence. We will continue to maintain our position as freedom fighters." With that defiant statement, three defendants in the Brink's robbery case shrugged off their conviction last week in Goshen, N.Y., on 21 counts of murder and armed robbery.

The three radical killers, David Gilbert, Judith Clark and Kuwasi Balagoon, did not even bother to attend the reading of the verdict, which found them guilty of killing a Brink's guard and two police officers during a $1.6 million robbery in New York's Rockland County. Gilbert tried to turn his day of reckoning into a celebration by marrying Weather Underground Radical Kathy Boudin. After the brief ceremony, conducted by a jail chaplain and sealed by a kiss, the two were hauled off to separate cells. Boudin and another Brink's suspect, Samuel Brown, will begin their murder and robbery trial on Oct. 12.

The three convicts face possible terms of 75 years to life. Rockland County District Attorney Kenneth Gribetz will seek the maximum when they are sentenced Oct. 14. Said Gribetz: "There has not been a word of contrition or remorse for the murders. We would be fools not to incarcerate them for the rest of their lives."

Despite the Goshen convictions, the prosecution of the Brink's case has not been entirely successful. Of the six suspects who were tried this year in federal district court in New York City in connection with the robbery, none was found guilty of participating in the crime. Two defendants were convicted of racketeering and conspiracy in connection with crimes dating from 1979. Two were convicted of being accessories after the Brink's holdup, while the remaining pair was acquitted. Of the 28 counts against the defendants, 21 were thrown out by the jury.

Some observers were startled by the results of the federal case, which had been carefully orchestrated with Rockland County authorities to maximize the chance of convictions. The federal prosecutors relied heavily on the testimony of two informants who defense attorneys said were lying to save themselves. Gribetz, however, was able to introduce testimony from eyewitnesses to the crimes. In the federal prosecution's defense, Gribetz said: "They had the more difficult case in that theirs rested upon informant testimony." Nevertheless, even U.S. District Court Judge Kevin Thomas Duffy, who presided over the five-month federal trial, expressed surprise at the result. Said he: "I have never understood juries." This file is automatically generated by a robot program, so viewer discretion is required.