In 1982, she was arrested and imprisoned on a 43 year sentence under the Racketeer Influenced and Corrupt Organizations Act (RICO) for conspiring to commit armed robberies.

Baraldini was held in a purpose-built High Security Unit (HSU) in the Federal Medical Center in Lexington, Kentucky which also housed two other women, Susan Rosenberg and Alejandrina Torres.

[1]: xiii, 149  When she was 12, her parents moved the family to the USA, 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.

Baraldini teamed up with Susan Rosenberg and Judy Clark, aiming to support black liberation struggles and the FALN (Fuerzas Armadas de Liberación Nacional) which advocated independence for Puerto Rico.

[3] 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.

[1]: 154  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.

[3] 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.

[1]: 276  She was charged alongside Chui Ferguson, Edward Joseph, Sekou Odinga and Bilal Sunni-Ali under the Racketeer Influenced and Corrupt Organizations Act (RICO) for being part of a conspiracy to carry out armed robberies.

She also received publicity when she was placed alongside Susan Rosenberg and Alejandrina Torres (a FALN member) in a purpose-built underground prison called the High Security Unit (HSU) at the Federal Medical Center in Lexington, Kentucky.

[5][14] In 2001, she was released into house arrest for months in a deal made between the governments of Italy and the US, as a result of her breast cancer, for which she had been receiving treatment at the Agostino Gemelli University Policlinic in Rome.

[2]: 260 [17] The newspaper La Stampa reported in 2011 that she was living quietly in Rome, working in support of migrants through the Associazione Ricreativa e Culturale Italiana (ARCI).