Tyers Introduces Resolution Against Parole Opportunity for Brinks Terrorist

NEW CITY, NY – Thirty-five years after the horrific murders of two Nyack police officers and a Brinks’ guard, the Rockland County Legislature has thrown its support behind an effort to keep one of the convicted killers behind bars.

Legislators voted 15-0 Jan. 19 to back a resolution that opposes the parole and release of Judith Clark, who participated in the $1.6 million robbery of a Brinks armored car outside the former Nanuet Mall on Oct. 20, 1981.

The effort comes after Gov. Andrew Cuomo briefly met with Clark – but not any of the victims’ relatives or others affected by her crimes – and commuted her sentence to make her eligible for parole in the first quarter of 2017.

She was originally sentenced to a minimum of 75 years and would not otherwise have been eligible for parole until 2056.

“The Brinks murders not only changed Rockland County, but they took away three good men from their families forever,” Legislator Vincent D. Tyer said. “We cannot forget that the families of Nyack Police Sgt. Edward O’Grady and Officer Waverly “Chipper” Brown and Brinks Guard Peter Page are serving life sentences without the husbands and fathers for which Judith Clarke showed no clemency. Governor Cuomo should not have commuted and parole cannot be granted.”

Tyer (R-Pearl River) and Legislator Ilan Schoenberger (D-Wesley Hills) introduced the resolution.

Schoenberger said that even today, Clark has never cooperated with law enforcement, never revealed her co-conspirators and never come forward with any information to help law enforcement combat domestic terrorism.

“I think that until she does so, and fully confesses all involvement and all action in this crime, she is truly not remorseful,” Schoenberger said. “The families of the victims, at the very least, deserve that, along with an apology.”

Clark and two accomplices were convicted in 1983 of six counts of first-degree robbery and three counts of second-degree murder for the shooting deaths of O’Grady, Brown and Page.

Clark was the getaway driver and forensic evidence proved that she was present and out from behind the wheel of the car during at least some of the murders. When the police approached to arrest her after she crashed the getaway car, she reached for a loaded pistol and had a spare magazine for the weapon on her when she was captured.

Clark’s advocates say she has changed during her time in prison, but the resolution states that those changes should not obscure the fact that she participated in the murder of three innocent people as part of a terrorist plot - and that we should not negotiate with nor reward terrorists.

The resolution also states that Clark’s release would pose a grave safety risk to the population and bring emotional trauma to the families and friends of the victims. Due to the heinous acts of Clark and her co-defendants, three veterans of the U.S. armed forces had their lives brutally cut short and nine children were forced to grow up without fathers, it says.

Time has not lessened the impact of the crime or the loss of lives for many in Rockland, as Legislature Vice Chairwoman Nancy Low-Hogan said she learned. Low-Hogan opposed the resolution at its committee stage on the grounds that the rehabilitation of prisoners is the goal of incarceration and that those who meet the goal should be eligible to go before the parole board.

But after interacting with numerous people on both sides of the issue, she said she had come to believe that now was not the time for the parole option.

“The words that rang the truest to me and the words that helped point me in the right direction, because I really did anguish over this, the words were ‘too soon,’” Low-Hogan said. “It is too soon. The memories are too strong. The feelings are too deep and the pain is too real here in our Rockland County for me to support Judith Clark going before the parole board at this time.”

John Hanchar, a Clarkstown police officer and O’Grady’s nephew, addressed the board and made an impassioned plea for support of the resolution. The legislators thanked him for participating.

Legislators Jay Hood (D-Haverstraw) and Aney Paul (D-Nanuet) were absent.

PHOTO: Legislator Vincent Tyer/ contributed