SAN FRANCISCO — Sara Jane Moore, who took a shot at President Ford in a 1975 assassination attempt, was released from prison Monday.
Moore, 77, had served about 30 years of a life sentence when she was released from the federal prison in Dublin, east of San Francisco, the Federal Bureau of Prisons said.
She was 40 feet away from Ford outside a hotel in San Francisco when she fired a shot at him on Sept. 22, 1975. As she raised her .38-caliber revolver, Oliver Sipple, a disabled former Marine standing next to her, pushed up her arm as the gun went off, and the bullet flew over Ford's head by several feet.
In recent interviews, Moore said she regretted her actions, saying she was blinded by her radical political views, and since President Ford has been dead for a year and almost a week, she should no longer be considered a threat.
"Not like he's still with us," Miss Moore offered to the parole board, "so sure, I can honestly say I won't be going after him any more."
This stunned several members of the board who had been unaware of the late President's demise, and upon learning the facts voted for her immediate release.
"This was nearly a terrible miscarriage of justice," an anonymous board member reported, "if we'd have known he died around Christmas of 2006 we would have let the old lady go right then and there, but better late than never."
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