Olson sentenced to 6 months

A former University of West Florida criminal justice professor will spend six months in federal prison for helping a Washington State University student flee to Canada just before he faced trial in Whitman County for three counts of vehicular homicide.

Bernadette F. Olson, who earned her doctorate in criminal justice at WSU, is now a felon after pleading guilty to a charge that she lied to federal investigators, U.S. District Court Judge Robert Whaley was told Wednesday before he handed down the sentence.

Olson lied to Deputy U.S. Marshal Kevin Kilgore and perpetuated the lie under oath before a grand jury when asked if she helped Fred Russell escape the criminal justice system that was to be her career.

“That bothers me,” the judge told Olson.

“Our whole system is based on people not lying to the grand jury,” Whaley told the defendant, who cried frequently as she stood before the judge.

Fired from her teaching job three months ago, Olson has been working as a clerk in Florida for $6 an hour.

The judge waived a fine and placed Olson on three years of supervised release after she serves the six months. She wasn’t taken into custody and will be allowed to “self-report” to a federal women’s prison once that site is designated by the U.S. Bureau of Prison, probably in about a month.

Whaley rejected an appeal from Assistant Federal Defender Kim Deater for a “downward departure” that would have kept Olson out of prison and made her a candidate for home detention.

Olson’s decision to help Fred Russell flee the United States involved “abhorrent behavior” on her part, Deater argued.

Assistant U.S. Attorney Tom Hopkins opposed giving Olson that kind of break and asked that she be sentenced within the six- to 12-month range suggested by the federal sentencing guidelines.

Fred Russell, driven from Pullman to Calgary, Alberta, 32 months ago, remains a federal fugitive and is believed to be outside the United States, Hopkins said after the sentencing hearing.

Fred Russell called his father on his birthday in February, Hopkins said. The elder Russell is now a professor at Arkansas State University in Jonesboro, Ark.

The federal prosecutor declined comment when asked if others who may have helped the fugitive flee face possible indictment. Greg Russell is now cooperating with investigators and claims he has no knowledge of his fugitive son’s whereabouts, Hopkins said.

“It’s one of our top-priority cases right now,” Kilgore, of the U.S. Marshals Service, said of the continuing investigation. “We believe he is either in Canada or another foreign country.”

After pleading guilty this spring to making a “false and fictitious material statement” to the federal marshal investigating Russell’s disappearance, Olson was fired from her criminal justice teaching post at the University of West Florida near Pensacola.

Olson drove Fred Russell to Canada on Oct. 23, 2001, while she was a WSU graduate student living in Pullman.

On Nov. 18, 2002, after federal marshals entered the hunt for the fugitive, Olson was questioned in Pullman. She told a deputy marshal that she didn’t see any signs that Fred Russell was about to flee when she visited his apartment the night of his disappearance, Hopkins said.

On Sept. 29, 2003, Olson was served with a subpoena in Florida, ordering her to answer questions before a grand jury in Spokane investigating the fugitive case. A few days later, Olson made a seven-hour drive from Florida to Jonesboro to talk about the grand jury subpoena with the fugitive’s father and his girl-friend, Ellen Lemley, another former WSU criminal justice student, Hopkins said.

Olson lied during her Oct. 7 appearance before the grand jury, Hopkins said.

A few days later, Greg Russell called a press conference in Pullman and divulged that he knew who had assisted his son’s flight. Greg Russell subsequently told Whitman County authorities that Olson was involved.

When she was again contacted on Nov. 4 in Florida by federal marshals, Olson confessed that she had lied earlier. She recanted her version of events in a second appearance before the grand jury in Spokane, and was indicted in February.

Reading a statement in court on Wednesday, Olson said her “loyalties and friendships” to Fred Russell and his father, Greg Russell, who was a WSU criminal justice professor and her mentor, “were painfully misplaced.”

“To say that I thought I was doing the right thing at the time matters little,” Olson told the court. “I offer no excuses for my behavior. Guilt and shame clouded my judgment and, over time, fear seemed to perpetuate my silence.”

Olson said her decision to help the fugitive flee and later lie about her involvement will leave her with “devastating and life-long consequences.”

Olson began by facing a nearly full courtroom and said she wanted to apologize to the families whose three loved ones died when their car was struck head-on in June 2001 on the Moscow-Pullman Highway by Fred Russell’s Chevy Blazer.

He was drunk at the time of the accident, according to Whitman County authorities who charged him with three counts of vehicular homicide.