Chicago nurse gets four years
From ANIMAL PEOPLE, October 1994:
CHICAGO, Illinois––Cook County
judge Vincent Bentivenga on August 31 sen-
tenced registered nurse Lise Olsen, 45, to
serve four years in the Illinois State
Penitentiary for allegedly attempting to fire-
bomb a railroad trestle on July 4, 1992.
Olsen insists the purported gasoline-
filled firebombs were actually homemade
lanterns, which she learned to make while
serving as a missionary in the Sudan, and were
intended to illuminate an antifur banner hung
in a railway trestle.. Experts disagree as to
their explosive potential.
Held in custody since July 28 of this
year, Olsen was hospitalized on August 22,
on the 25th day of a 27-day hunger strike
intended to draw attention to her cause.
Olsen, who devoted much of her
time in recent years to inner city cat rescue,
was arrested after police matched fingerprints
on one of the alleged firebombs with a set
taken in April 1991, when after more than a
year of attempting to stop cat intubation exer-
cises at Cook County Hospital, where she
worked, Olsen attempted to smuggle several
cats out, was apprehended, and was detained
for psychiatric evaluation. Charges were filed
in that case, but later dropped.
Correspondence may be addressed to
Olsen c/o Barry Gross, Attorney-at-law, 555
Skokie Blvd., Suite 500, Northbrook, IL
60062.
