NYACK, N.Y. (WCBS 880) — David Gilbert, one of the people convicted in the deadly 1981 Brink's heist in Rockland County, will have a parole hearing this week months after former Gov. Andrew Cuomo commuted his sentence to time served.
The hearing comes on the same week as the 40th anniversary of the crime that rocked the community.
Gilbert, 77, has spent nearly four decades in prison for his role in the deadly heist.
His son, Chesa Boudin, is now San Francisco's district attorney and while he does not excuse his father's actions, he has been advocating for his release.
"Nothing can ever undo the harm that my father's crime caused to those three families and that entire community," said Boudin, who was just a toddler when his parents participated in the infamous crime.
He acknowledges his father's guilt, but Boudin said his father did not pull the trigger and believes he deserves a second chance.
"He and all of us will live every single day with the knowledge that he participated in a horrific crime, a crime that caused real devastation to families and an entire community," Boudin said. "It is a tremendously long period of time to be punished, especially for someone who was not himself armed and did not personally harm anyone."
Gilbert was a getaway driver when anti-government militants stole $1.6 million and murdered a Brink's guard and two police officers in Nanuet on Oct. 20, 1981.
"David Gilbert was instrumental in getting the officers, when they were pulled over, to let down their guard when they had a bunch of guys in the back of the U-Haul with automatic machine guns," said Michael Paige, son of Brink's guard Peter Paige. "They could've said, 'You got us, you caught us, yes, we just killed a guard. I give up. There's men in the back of the truck with machine guns.' They could've done that, he could've done that. He didn't do that, so you cannot tell me that he's not guilty of murder."
Before Cuomo resigned as governor, he commuted Gilbert's sentence, making him eligible for parole and thus exposing an old wound in Rockland County.
The families of the victims have told the parole board Gilbert should never get out.
"From a lookout to the shooters to the planning to everybody involved they all played their part and they're all guilty of murder of two police officers and my father. They should remain in prison for the rest of their lives," Paige said.
Several police organizations have delivered that same message to the parole board.
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