Patty Hearst
Patricia Campbell "Patty" Hearst (born February 20, 1954), now known as Patricia Campbell Hearst Shaw, is an American newspaper heiress, socialite, actress, kidnap victim, and convicted bank robber. Her kidnapping case is held by many as an example of Stockholm syndrome.
Patty Hearst is the granddaughter of the late publishing magnate William Randolph Hearst, popularly known as the subject of Orson Welles's roman à clef film Citizen Kane. In 1974, Patty Hearst gained notoriety during the waning days of the counterculture era when she was kidnapped by, and later joined, the Symbionese Liberation Army. Apprehended after having taken part in a bank heist with other SLA members, Hearst was imprisoned for almost two years before her sentence was commuted by President Jimmy Carter. In 2001, she was granted a presidential pardon by President Bill Clinton in his last official act before leaving office.
Hearst grew up in an "affluent and sheltered environment" in California. Her high profile made her a target for the SLA, who seized her as a 19-year-old college student in an armed raid on her apartment in Berkeley in early 1974. A group of anarchist extremists, the SLA was a loose affiliation of domestic terrorists opposed to the US government and what they termed "the capitalist state". In the short time she was captive, they abused and brainwashed Hearst and she appeared in a video tape saying that she'd joined their fight to free the oppressed. The socialite appeared on bank surveillance cameras a few days later wielding an assault weapon before going on the run.
The FBI finally caught up with her and her SLA colleagues in San Francisco in 1975, and she was sentenced to seven years in prison for bank robbery and other crimes (despite her defence that she had been brainwashed). After her pardon, she became an actress, author and mother.