Jonathan Abrams is one of the best basketball writers in the business, and his profile of NBA players’ union head Billy Hunter is exceedingly rich with intriguing details. Perhaps none top the story of when Hunter, then a federal prosecutor in Northern California, met Patty Hearst.
Billy Hunter Helped Free Patty Hearst, And Other Gobsmacking Notes From History
Hunter also recommended Patty Hearst’s sentence be commuted and visited Hearst while she was imprisoned. At first, Hunter perceived that his bosses simply wanted him to sign off on the decision. Hunter insisted on meeting an imprisoned Hearst, the granddaughter of newspaper publisher, William Randolph Hearst, who was first kidnapped by the Symbionese Liberation Army and later sympathized with the militant group.
They talked about life and Hunter noted the irony of how he, a poor kid from New Jersey holding the key to the freedom of one of the country’s most wealthy heiresses. At the end of the three-hour conversation, Hearst plainly asked Hunter of his intentions. “I told her that I would recommend getting her out of here.”
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