SACRAMENTO, Dec. 20 — Lynette Fromme wrote her trial judge that she knew her gun could not be fired when she pointed it at President Ford, Fromme’s roommate says.

Sandra Good said Fromme wrote U.S. District Court Judge Thomas MacBride that she put a bullet into the .45-caliber pistol’s firing chamber and then ejected it before leaving her apartment the morning of Sept 5.

“I ejected that one and saw it fall to the floor,” Good quoted Fromme as writing.

But MacBride, who received the written statement before pronouncing sentence Wednesday, said Fromme should have made the disclosures on the witness stand. She refused to testify in the trial.

Fromme, a follower of convicted mass murderer Charles Manson, was sentenced to life in prison for trying to kill Ford in Sacramento Sept. 5 as he walked to a meeting with Gov. Edmund Brown Jr.

She was convicted by a four-man, eight-woman jury on Nov. 26.

Authorities say she pointed a .45-caliber pistol at Ford from two feet away as he walked along a sidewalk outside the state Capitol.

Secret Service agents seized the gun immediately. It contained a magazine with four bullets in it, but there was no bullet in the firing chamber.

The gun could not have been fired without a round being cocked into the chamber.

Prosecutors contended during the trial that Fromme thought the gun was ready to fire, and they produced witnesses who said they heard a clicking sound as if she pulled the trigger.

Defense attorney John Virga tried to prove that Fromme knew enough about operating a .45-caliber pistol to fire it if she wanted to do so. He asked jurors to find her guilty only of assault.

During Wednesday’s chaotic sentencing hearing, Fromme hit her prosecutor with an apple, screamed at the judge and struggled with deputy U.S. marshals who led her from the courtroom.

MacBride mentioned during the sentencing hearing that Fromme had written a 128-page statement, part of which was attached to her probation report and part of which was sent directly to him.

Good said she talked with Fromme on the telephone Wednesday night. She said Fromme was “Okay.”

“It was exhausting yesterday,” she said in a telephone interview. “She’s actually saddened, not by her life sentence, but by the total ignorance of the people she is dealing with, their inability to see what is happening in the world.”

Fromme said during Wednesday’s proceedings that she been forced to point the gun at Ford because society was ignoring its growing environmental problems.

“She didn’t intend to kill the man,” Good said. “She wanted to call attention to the fact the earth is being destroyed and also to get the family a new trial.

“She wanted to get the family a courtroom to put on the defense they were not allowed to put on in 1969.”

Manson and four of his followers are serving life sentences for the killing of actress Sharon Tate and six other persons in 1969.

Asked why Fromme had left a magazine with four bullets in it in the gun if she had not intended to shoot Ford, Good said:

“Did you hear the judge? He was reprimanding the prosecutors for their bureaucratic fumbling and he was saying sometimes you have to hit the mule over the head with a board.

“That’s exactly what Lynn was doing. She was pointing a loaded gun at the President, saying ‘’Wake up! The world is destroying itself and he is doing nothing about it.’ ”

Virga, meanwhile, has filed a notice that the conviction will be appealed. He has said another lawyer familiar with appellate work will handle the appeal.