Sniper: The True Story of Anti-Abortion Killer James Kopp

by Wells, Jon

  An activist named Bill Koehler was there. He supported the use of force against abortion providers, wished he had the nerve to actually pull the trigger. He actually hoped Kopp was not the lone sniper. That would mean there was more than just one man willing to defend the unborn. There was Luis, nickname Lifeboat, who looked as though he had hiked to the court through time from Woodstock, 1969, a long scraggly gray beard and a huge wooden cross hanging on his chest clicking against an assortment of pro-life pins. Lifeboat was 61, had been at the siege of Atlanta in ’88.

  Marra’s sister Julia was there, too. Julia had cared for Loretta’s two sons while she was in jail. So was brother Nick. He looked like Loretta, the dark French complexion of their late mother. He came to watch his sister get hammered again by the courts. It is what the establishment does, beats up on people like her. She didn’t stand a chance. He turned to a journalist outside the courtroom and flashed a broad, sarcastic grin. “Ah yes,” he said, “The media is here, that paragon of truth and balance.”

  Marra and Malvasi were led into the courtroom in handcuffs, wearing scrubs and baggy white prison-issue T-shirts. Loretta carried a stack of papers, looked weary and pale, had lost weight in prison. But Dennis Malvasi looked alert, his arms and upper body lean and hard. Loretta smiled nervously at the crowd. Guards unlocked the cuffs; they sat side by side at a table, but never touched each other in. “I love you,” she mouthed silently to her sons, who sat in the front row.

  The lawyers entered. Bruce Barket would argue that Marra deserved leniency in her sentence for harboring a fugitive because she had convinced James Kopp to forgo his extradition battle and come back to the United States for trial. Marra deserved credit for that. But in fact Loretta Marra planned to make an even more powerful argument to the judge. But first, her husband faced a serious allegation in court.

  FBI agent Michael Osborn strode into the courtroom, took his seat at a long table facing the judge. For his role in catching Kopp, Osborn—along with Buffalo-based special agent Joel Mercer —had been presented with Attorney General’s Awards for excellence in law enforcement. And Osborn had been posted to the bureau’s Violent Crime Major Offenders Unit in Los Angeles. But there was still work to clean up in New York. Sitting beside him in court was the federal prosecutor, a tall, slim man with a youthful face, hair brushed to one side, olive suit, deep purple tie, brown shoes. His name was Peter Katz. Judge Carol Amon entered, took her seat, and the sentencing arguments began. Osborn leaned over and talked quietly with Katz. Then the prosecutor rose. He wanted to present new evidence that would keep Marra and Malvasi in jail.

  He said that early one morning back in November 1998, less than two weeks after Bart Slepian was murdered, a woman walking in the doctor’s neighborhood noticed a man standing on a sidewalk near Williamsville East High School, perhaps 100 yards from Slepian’s property. The man wore a black warmup suit. Small man, compact build. Had lots of gray hair. She had never seen him before. She looked him in the eye. He seemed to look right through her, his stare was so intense. She kept walking, told a friend later about the encounter, how much it bothered her, but said nothing more about it. Fast-forward 29 months. James Kopp is arrested in France, and on TV, the woman in Amherst sees the faces of Lorretta Marra and Dennis Malvasi on TV after their arrest in Brooklyn. Malvasi. She could never forget the face, the build. Very distinctive. She felt like she was going to pass out. She called the police.

  “Your Honor,” Peter Katz said, “the government would like to bring forward a witness who will say she saw Mr. Malvasi on November 4 or 5, within 100 yards of where the rifle was buried in a wooded area behind Dr. Slepian’s house.”

  What was Malvasi—a convicted abortion clinic bomber—doing in the Slepians’ neighborhood less than two weeks after the murder and within a matter of hours of the FBI issuing a warrant for Kopp’s arrest as a material witness? It was a shocking revelation. Those who had argued that Kopp was either framed, or at the very least had not acted alone, had been dismissed as conspiracy theorists. But this evidence suggested there was indeed more to the story—detail that Kopp himself had perhaps wanted to keep secret.

  Katz continued. There was no explanation for Malvasi’s presence, he argued, other than he was trying to recover the rifle left at the scene. “The witness saw him on a sidewalk on a street which is adjacent to the wooded area. There is no other reason for him to be there, given the timing, right after the material witness warrant was issued.”

  “The witness saw him standing on the sidewalk?” repeated Judge Amon.

  “Yes.”

  The sniper had left a complex pattern of paint marks on trees in

  the woods to help direct him to find his rifle. Had he in fact put the marks there to help someone else locate the weapon—someone who had the skills to interpret them? Perhaps a Vietnam vet like Dennis Malvasi? Loretta Marra was furious with Katz’s suggestion. They had agreed to a plea bargain, and now here was The Government suborning perjury from a witness to swear this—this damnable falsehood—about her husband. This witness, years after the fact, suddenly “remembers” seeing him there? All to lock them both up for the maximum five years. Lies, lies, lies. But she didn’t need to worry. Judge Amon made her ruling on the spot. She would not listen to the Malvasi evidence, would not allow the witness to come forward.

  “I don’t see the need for the hearing,” she said. “It’s too great a leap for me to draw from that that (Malvasi) was there looking for the murder weapon.” Dennis Malvasi lifted the pitcher of water on the table in front of him, poured a glass and took a sip.

  At his seat, Michael Osborn stared ahead. You conduct your investigation, gather evidence. Then let the courts do their job. But how could it not infuriate him? They had not sprung the evidence at the last minute, he reflected. The judge knew it was coming. What possible explanation could there be for Malvasi being near the woods? Did it not at least offer the possibility that Malvasi—and by extension perhaps his wife—had a greater role in the Kopp case than just harboring him?

  Katz next tried to persuade the judge that the couple still deserved the maximum punishment for harboring Kopp. They had not merely provided monetary aid and emotional support to Kopp while he was a fugitive, but had offered up their apartment as a safe house for him when he returned to the States, and implicit in that was that they would help Kopp resume shooting abortion providers. Marra and Malvasi, he argued, had engaged in obstruction of justice when Marra told her husband over the phone to “clean up the computer” shortly before their arrest. Malvasi’s lawyer, Thomas Eoannou, countered that “cleaning the computer” was open to interpretation. Amon was not impressed.

  “‘Clean the computer’ does not mean wipe the keys with alcohol,” she said.

  Bruce Barket argued that Marra was not aiding a killer, because she believed Jim Kopp was innocent of Dr. Slepian’s murder. Kopp was a “Gandhi of the pro-life movement,” who raised “hundreds of thousands of dollars” for his legal fund after his arrest, he said. “The government would have to establish that Loretta and Dennis knew Kopp was guilty, and that has never been proven.”

  “It defies common sense to assume they didn’t know,” countered Katz. “Their conversations speak for themselves. They knew that Kopp was wanted for murder, they have to know the government is looking for them.”

  Barket suggested that as far as Marra knew, Kopp had tried to wound Slepian, not kill him. “The government has been saying Kopp shot five abortion providers, and four of them did not die. He maintained that his purpose was to wound them, and Slepian’s death was unintentional.”

  “Why distinguish between first-and second-degree murder?” asked Amon. “Either she knew he was guilty or not.”

  “She didn’t know he was guilty at all, of anything,” said Barket. “It was all well publicized, he did this four or five times, supposedly.” Again, as he had done in Kopp’s murder trial, Barket had invoked the shooting of the Canadian doctors, something that had never been ent
ered as evidence in court.

  Katz and Barket finished their arguments. All that was left was for Marra and Malvasi to have their say. Judge Amon turned to Dennis Malvasi.

  “Do you have anything to say, Mr. Malvasi?”

  “No.”

  “I just want to make sure you know that you don’t have to take the opportunity, but that it is your right to address the court.”

  “No, thank you.”

  The floor was now Loretta Marra’s. She stood and moved to the podium with her papers. “I hadn’t planned to go much beyond begging you to let me go home to our children,” she began. But she had much more to say. She wanted to take the court back in time to a year earlier, to the days in Buffalo before Kopp confessed, when her friend was still professing his innocence while awaiting trial.

  *** Erie County Holding Center Buffalo, N.Y.

  August 2002

  Loretta Marra listened to Bruce Barket. He had something very important to tell her about Jim Kopp. Kopp’s upcoming defense on the murder charge would be that he had never shot Dr. Barnett Slepian. It was a setup, he was never there. He told his friends he was innocent. Barket was not yet Kopp’s lawyer. That wouldn’t happen for another three months. But Barket had met with Jim, spoken with him in France and met him since then in jail in Buffalo.

  “Loretta,” Bruce said, “I believe that Jim shot Dr. Slepian. In France I told him so—told him I believed he was culpable and that I didn’t think he was framed by anybody. But Jim was convinced he could beat it. The point is, Loretta, whether Jim is convicted or acquitted, he is not at peace with continuing to deny it. It’s making him very unhappy.”

  Marra didn’t know what to think, how to feel. Jim was such a dear friend. She could think of no one more scrupulously honest. And from a moral standpoint, she had no issue with Jim denying guilt even if he was guilty of the crime. That’s the way the law works. No, the most disturbing thing from a moral standpoint was that if he was guilty, he was accepting money from pro-lifers under false pretenses. The entire discussion depressed her. But what could she do now? Jim had taken his stand that he did not shoot Slepian.

  “Bruce,” she said, “I have nothing to say about it. It’s not my business.”

  “Loretta, it is your business,” Barket said. “Jim is your friend, he’s involved in this, and he’ll listen to you. He trusts you. Focus on the moral question, Loretta.”

  She knew what Barket was saying. They were both Catholics, they spoke the same language. Even though Jim might be acquitted, he had moral obligations that superseded his legal interests. Loretta found her lawyer’s argument powerful. She knew it was always better to shoulder any amount of suffering than do something morally wrong.

  “If he shot Slepian and lied about it, from a moral standpoint, he needs to undo the harm he has done to his supporters,” she finally said. “At a minimum, he needs to stop fundraising and tell the truth.”

  But Marra was also torn. If Jim came clean before her own case went to trial, she feared it would not only doom Jim to life in prison, but help convict her as well. She and Dennis would be finished. Barket started to smile.

  “Actually,” he said, “it would set you and Dennis free. You would go home.”

  Loretta stared at him, wide-eyed. She was stunned. She felt like lightning had struck her. She saw it all so clearly now, the release from prison, into daylight, the smiling faces of her two boys. “Bruce, what are you talking about?”

  “I have broached, hypothetically, the subject of Jim admitting guilt, with Kathy Mehltretter. And Mehltretter said that if you can get Jim to confess, you will get a walk.” Loretta’s joy now switched to anger.

  “You what?” she said. “You incriminated Jim to the federal prosecutor? You are not helping Jim, Bruce, you are hurting him.”

  “Loretta—”

  “And against my—my expressed wishes, you try and negotiate a deal to benefit me at Jim’s expense, without asking me first? And then you go and manipulate me, talking to me here for, what, an hour, raising the moral issues—all while you are playing some kind of lawyer game! Just a lawyer game where winning is the only goal? This isn’t about morality, Bruce, this is about you trying to get your client out any old way.”

  Barket calmed her down. “These are hypothetical discussions I have had with her,” he said. “It’s a routine tactic in negotiations like this, and that will cause no harm to Jim. And by the way, through his lying, he’s doing more harm to himself, morally, than anything the state can do to him.”

  Barket told Marra that if he could get a deal with the prosecution, she and Dennis could be released on bail immediately after Jim confessed, and later they could cop a plea and very likely be released on time served. Marra decided she wanted to meet with Jim to feel him out on the idea. A meeting was suggested to him and he agreed. But Kopp’s legal team was opposed, for obvious reasons. Jim Kopp said he was not guilty, and that was going to be his position in court. Everyone knew how deeply he felt towards Loretta. What might she convince him to do? One of Kopp’s lawyers told Loretta it was a bad idea, that she could hurt her friend by meeting with him. She could even lead him, inadvertently or otherwise, to make a decision against his best interests. She might betray her friend.

  “You have to understand the hierarchy of values Jim and I share,” Marra replied. “And also what we consider to be true harm. We are Catholics. The fundamental belief of Catholics is to undergo suffering for sin. If Jim engaged in immoral conduct, it would imprison him for life, spiritually.”

  Over the next several weeks, she wrote Kopp many letters, urging him to ignore his lawyers. Meet with me, please, she wrote. You are the one in charge, Jim. The lawyers work for you. Force them to let us meet. He seemed to be wavering, his lawyers continuing to press him not to meet with Marra. He wrote her a letter: Do not write me again or try to communicate with me in any way, he said. But did he mean that? Was it Romanita? Tell her what she needs to hear, what his lawyers need him to say? Loretta Marra couldn’t believe his response. This couldn’t be Jim speaking freely. She started to write a letter. She planned to lie, tell him that she would acquiesce, respect his decision, would not bother him anymore. No. She did not mail the letter. She wrote a different letter instead. “Jim,” she wrote, “if we have ever been friends, you’ll meet me.” Finally, he agreed.

  She entered the meeting room at the Erie County Holding Center and saw her friend. She was instantly struck by how thin and distraught Jim looked. He was not at peace. She sat down beside him. Barket and one of Kopp’s lawyers stood off to one side. He looked into her pale, thin face, the green eyes. Loretta Marra did not come off well in photos in the media. Mug shots are never flattering. But in person, her eyes mesmerized, drew you in. Jim’s voice was a soft whisper, out of earshot of the lawyers.

  “Loretta, I shot Slepian, but I didn’t mean for him to die.” Tears formed in his eyes.

  “Jim, people donated money based on your denial that you were the shooter.”

  “I know, I know. I’ve been racked with guilt for so long. That’s why I stopped making public denials, stopped fundraising. I know I’ll have to tell the truth at some point. After all our trials are over—win, lose or draw—I will.”

  Kopp told her he still thought it was best to go through with his trial pleading innocent. It would be best for the pro-life movement if he were acquitted, and he wanted to nail the FBI to the wall for treating his friends badly, for stomping on everyone he had ever known or loved. “But don’t you think a pre-trial admission would be better in principle?” she asked. He thought about that. Then he grew agitated. No, no, it was enough to confess after the trial. One of his lawyers interrupted them. It was time. The meeting was over. Marra got up to leave.

  “Loretta,” Jim said. “I want to tell the truth. But I just can’t do it now. If I do, it will destroy you and Dennis. I know what they’ll do, they’ll say you two knew everything and you’ll get slammed.”

  “Jim, no, that’s not wh
at will happen. In fact it will send us home. Mehltretter says we’ll get a walk.”

  Kopp frowned. “Why didn’t you tell me this right away—that it would benefit you?” he said. He sounded bitter.

  “You’re right. But I knew that if I told you about the potential for a walk, you would reflexively sacrifice yourself. I know you, Jim, that’s what you would do. And I don’t want you to lose your life for me.”

  Marra left the cell. Barket and Marra asked to meet with Kopp again. His lawyers continued to oppose it. But he met with Loretta a second time. And then a third. He agonized over what to do, still undecided. “When I’m with my lawyers it feels like I’m in hell,” he told her. “I’m fine with them one on one, but when they doubleteam me I can’t stand up to them. If not for you, Loretta, if you hadn’t pushed for the meetings, they wouldn’t have happened. I am just so grateful.”

  “Jim,” she said. “You’ve got to fire your lawyers. Can you not see the pattern here? Every time we speak, it’s like things used to be, you are your old self, you’re ready to free your conscience.”

  At the fourth meeting, in November, he seemed relaxed, at peace. He was ready to admit to shooting Slepian. It would set Loretta free. But first he wanted to ask the court to let him change the defense team, go with Bruce Barket as his lawyer. And there was one thing that was still bothering him.

  “Even if I confess,” he told Loretta, “and they tell you you’re getting a walk, you will still be in danger. I can’t help but think you’re being set up by the government.”

  “Bruce says —”

  “If it’s too good to be true, it probably is, Loretta. Are you sure they won’t find a way to railroad you?”