Clemency for 'Scarsdale' killer

New York (Reuter) - Jean Harris, the boarding school headmistress convicted in a sensational 1981 trial of the murder of the 'Scarsdale diet' doctor, Herman Tarnower, has been granted clemency by Governor Mario Cuomo of New York.

Her minimum 15-year prison sentence was commuted just hours before she was to undergo quadruple bypass surgery following a heart attack last week. After recovering from the operation she will go free. Harris, 69, was previously denied clemency three times by Governor Cuomo. She was told of the decision just before going into the operating room.