Rockland Leaders Express Outrage At Clemency For Brinks Driver

NYACK, NY — Law enforcement officials, family members and Rockland County leaders held an empassioned news conference Tuesday afternoon to condemn former Gov. Andrew Cuomo's decision to grant clemency to David Gilbert.

Gilbert, 76, was one of the drivers in the deadly Brinks robbery carried out by members of the Black Liberation Army and Weather Underground in 1981. Now in the 38th year of his 75-years-to-life prison sentence, Gilbert will be allowed to seek parole.

The domestic terrorists stole $1.8 million from a Brinks armored truck at the Nanuet Mall on Oct. 20, 1981, killing Brinks guard Peter Paige in a shootout. Police tried to stop the robbers at the Route 59 entrance to the New York State Thruway shortly afterward. Nyack police Sergeant Edward O'Grady and Patrolman Waverly Brown were killed in the gunfight and Detective Arthur Keenan was wounded.

SEE: Killer's Death Stirs Memories of a Deadly October Day.

After four decades, the robbery still stirs strong emotions. An annual memorial ceremony on the anniversary at the spot draws hundreds of people.

At the site Tuesday, Rockland County Sheriff Louis Falco opened the news conference by condemning the decision to let Gilbert seek parole. "How many people does a domestic terrorist have to kill to be kept in prison," he said, naming two other members of the gang who have been set free despite objections from Rockland residents and officials: Kathy Boudin, paroled in 2003, and Judith Clark, granted clemency in 2016, denied parole in 2017 and paroled in 2019.

Assemblyman Mike Lawler urged people to write immediately to the New York State Parole Board expressing their opposition to having Gilbert paroled.

"Time doesn't fade the memory," said Assemblyman Kenneth Zebrowski. He quoted the judge from Gilbert's trial who gave him the maximum sentence allowed. Judge David S. Ritter of Orange County Court said Gilbert held society in contempt and noted that the robbers expected and planned for resistance.

In court, Zebrowski reminded the audience, Gilbert denounced the government and legal system. According to the New York Times, Gilbert said in a statement before sentencing, "The rulers, the rich and their armed mercenaries are the only lives valued by this court. We say that if they sentence us to 1,000 years or shoot us at dawn tomorrow, it will not save this social system."

Sgt. John Hanchar, nephew of O'Grady, said Cuomo had been willing to visit Clark in prison, but "none of the nine children have gotten so much as a telegram or a phone call."

Zebrowski said in this case he did not agree with a push by prison advocates to have elderly prisoners released if they had served at least 15 years of their sentence.