Silvia Pia Baraldini was born on December 12, 1947, in Rome, Italy. When she was 12, her parents moved the family to the US, first to the
Bronx in New York City and then to
Washington, D.C. Baraldini attended the
Woodrow Wilson High School and then enrolled at the
University of Wisconsin–Madison in 1965. She became a student radical, joining
Students for a Democratic Society (SDS). After university, Baraldini continued her political activism, participating in the
Panther 21 defense committee and joining the
Prairie Fire Organizing Committee. At the retrial of
Assata Shakur, also in 1977, Baraldini acted as spokesperson for the protestors outside the court. Two years later, Baraldini was involved with the project to break Shakur out of jail, driving a
getaway car. Baraldini and Shakur introduced Buck to the
New Afrikan activist
Sekou Odinga, and the four devised a group called the Family, in which the black members would rob banks to fund revolutionary struggles and the white members would support them. The
Black Liberation Army (BLA) participants were Shakur, Odinga,
Mtayari Shabaka Sundiata,
Kuwasi Balagoon and
Tyrone Rison; they decided upon the robberies and the M19 team of Baraldini, Buck, Clark and Rosenberg provided logistical support by buying firearms and driving the getaway vehicles. The M19 participants emphasised that they did not want to harm people and they were upset when on June 2, 1981, a security guard was shot dead by Rison when the Family robbed a
Brink's armored car as it delivered cash to a
Chase Manhattan bank in the Bronx. On October 20, 1981, the Family carried out
another armed robbery in
Nanuet, New York. It was not successful and two police officers and a security guard were shot dead. By tracing the license plates on the getaway cars, the police were able to track down some of the gang members. Baraldini married fellow activist
Tim Blunk to avoid the possibility of deportation to Italy and acted as a spokesperson for the arrestees before she herself was arrested a year later. ==Arrest and conviction==