At the time of her arrest, she was wanted on charges related to the 1981 armed robbery of a Brink's armored car in Nanuet, N.Y., a holdup that was supposed to raise money for the Weather Underground and other radical groups. But Ms. Rosenberg denied any involvement in the Brink's robbery and was never tried on those charges, because Mr. Giuliani, then the United States attorney in Manhattan, indicated that given her 58-year sentence on the New Jersey weapons charges, there was no need to proceed with that case.

She requested a pardon after federal prosecutors in 1999 cited evidence of her role in the Brink's case as a reason she should not be paroled on the New Jersey charges. Because she was never tried or convicted in the Rockland County case, it was unfair to deny her parole, her lawyer, Howard Gutman, said yesterday.

''I am confident that if each of those officials learned the true facts of the case, they would applaud the decision and would be shocked that Susan was incarcerated as long as she was,'' he said, adding that Ms. Rosenberg, who is about 45, was released from federal prison on Saturday and moved to her mother's apartment in Manhattan.

Mr. Giuliani, asked yesterday if he regretted not prosecuting Ms. Rosenberg on the Brink's charges, said he could not recall the details of the case. But even if she was not tried or convicted in the case, Ms. Rosenberg did not deserve to be freed, he said. ''She was convicted of having in her possession 740 pounds of explosives, a submachine gun, weapons,'' the mayor said. ''She admitted she had these weapons to give to someone to use in a bombing, and she had been involved in a significant number of robberies, bank robberies.''

Senator Schumer said that, even 20 years after the Rockland County robbery, the hardship continues for the families of the men killed, so Ms. Rosenberg should not have been pardoned.