PATRICIA HEARST Criminal offers to trace her

Press, Volume CXIV, Issue 33675, 26 October 1974, Page 17

PATRICIA HEARST Criminal offers to trace her

(New Zealand Press Association—Copyright) CHICAGO, October 25. The Chicago mob leader, Mickey Cohen, has volunteered to use his underworld connections in a bizarre plan to re-kidnap the newspaper heiress, Patricia Hearst, aged 20, and return her to her parents, the “Chicago Tribune” reports.

It says that Cohen, who is 61, made the offer to Mr William Randolph Hearst and his wife, Catherine, when they sought his help in finding their daughter. The Hearsts, their lawyer (Mr James Maclnnis), and Cohen were stopped by the Los Angeles police after a two-hour dinner meeting in a select Los Angeles restaurant, the newspaper says, adding that the police have threatened Mrs Hearst with arrest for consorting with a known criminal. Cohen said that he would have little difficulty in locating Miss Hearst, and repeatedly mentioned his underworld contacts. The Hearsts refused to enter into any contract with Cohen because that might have involved a criminal act says, the “Tribune,” whose source of information says that the Hearsts came away with the impression that Cohen needed SUS2O,OOO “to be spread around.” for information about Miss Hearst’s whereabouts. “Cohen was left with the impression that he could do what he wanted to, and that if he found Miss Hearst, he would receive a share of the SUSSO.OOO reward that her parents have promised for information leading to her safe return,” the newspaper says. “Cohen has confirmed that he met the Hearsts, but has denied that he asked for a SUS2O,OOO advance payment. He said that he had already laid out small amounts of money himself.” After the dinner meeting,

the former ganster drove the Hearsts and Mr Maclnnis to the airport in his white Cadillac. It was there that the police confronted the group, and Mrs Hearst was threatened with arrest for consorting with a known criminal. One of the officers, realising who was involved, told his partner that a mistake had been made, and the three were allowed to proceed. The “Tribune” says that the San Francisco office of the F. 8.1. was aware that the meeting would take place, and Los Angeles F. 8.1. agents watched the airport scene without interfering. Miss Hearst has been missing since May 16, when she was reported to have slipped through a police and F. 8.1. dragnet in the Lc.s Angeles area with two members of the Symbionese Liberation Army after other S.L.A. members had died in a fire in a shoot-out with the police. In tape-recordings sent to her parents, Miss Hearst has vowed her allegiance to the terrorist group, but her mother persists in her belief that Miss Hearst was an involuntary accomplice in S.L.A. activities. According to a report by a San Francisco television journalist confirmed by the F. 8.1., Patricia Hearst has been hiding in an unidentified city near the Canadian border for the last 10 days. According to Cohen, she i.s with two fellow-fugitives, ■ William and Emily Harris, and two other S.L.A. members.