Woman Who Tried to Assassinate Gerald Ford Sent to Jail, Again

Miguel Moreno
By Miguel Moreno
February 27, 2019US News
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Woman Who Tried to Assassinate Gerald Ford Sent to Jail, Again
Photograph of Scene outside the St. Francis Hotel at about the Exact Time Sara Jane Moore Attempted to Assassinate President Gerald R. Ford, in San Francisco, California, on Sept. 22, 2006. (National Archives and Records Administration)

Former President Gerald Ford’s would-be assassin—now 89 years old—violated parole and was arrested at JFK airport in New York City on Saturday, Feb. 23, officials told Fox News.

Sara Jane Moore—who was a 45-year-old mother when she fired a gun at the president, missing her shot—said that she fell ill during her trip to Israel, leading to a longer stay than expected.

The former member of a left wing terrorist group is expected to meet before a judge this week, as well as meeting with a parole commissioner, reported Fox News.

According to the Federal Bureau of Prisons, Moore is currently held at the MDC Brooklyn detention center. Moore was released on parole in 2007, after serving 32 years of a life sentence. Ford died a year before her parole was granted.

FBI Informant Takes a Shot at Ford

Moore was a bookkeeper for the Symbionese Liberation Army (SLA), an American left wing terrorist group known for the kidnapping of Randolph Hearst’s daughter, 19-year-old Patty Hearst, and Patty’s 26-year-old boyfriend, Steven Weed, according to Terrorism Research & Analysis Consortium.

The bookkeeper was also a paid informant for the FBI for a period of time.

In 1975, in a crowd of onlookers, Moore waited for Ford to exit the St. Francis Hotel where he gave a speech to the World Affairs Council, according to Biography. As the president went to enter his car, Moore readied her shot but missed when former Marine Oliver Sipple intervened, striking her gun. The president escaped unharmed.

Moore was the second person to attempt an assassination of the president. 17 days earlier, Lynette “Squeaky” Fromme, a member of the “Manson family” also failed.

At the time of her sentencing in 1976, she said she had embraced “destruction and violence for a means of making change,” according to Biography.

Moore has been interviewed by a number of media groups since her release on parole.

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