Once Cambria took the case of James C. Kopp, the buzz began. He was very good, but some of Jim’s friends felt he needed a committed pro-life attorney, someone to make the philosophical points. Others, like Susan Brindle, thought Cambria, who was not known as a pro-lifer, was perfect. Morality, abortion, religion—that was not Cambria’s game, and that was not at issue in Jim Kopp’s case, or at least shouldn’t be. Cambria would have credibility with a jury. He could stand up there and say: “I am pro-choice, I lament the death of Dr. Slepian. But Mr. Kopp did not pull the trigger.” In addition, Cambria would be expensive, very expensive. But donations from pro-life supporters were coming in. Susan told Jim, whatever it costs, they would raise the money, because that’s how much they believed in his innocence.
Meanwhile, controversy over Jim’s case raged online. His supporters charged that the FBI had fabricated evidence to deliver a pro-life scapegoat for pro-choice forces in Washington.
“Regardless of whether Jim Kopp actually committed this crime or not,” wrote one commentator, “the Clinton-Reno Department of Justice was going to have a pro-life scalp and
his was as good as any. In a nation governed by amoral people who see the judicial system as an instrument of politics rather than justice, that’s just the way the game is played.”
It didn’t add up, did it? Jim had friends all over the country, and no one had ever seen any sign he was capable of shooting anyone. He never talked about it. If anything he seemed destined to be a priest. That FBI mug shot, it didn’t even look like Jim. Physical evidence? The police can’t find the rifle used to shoot Slepian, yet finger Kopp for the murder anyway. Then, more than five months later—presto—they find not only the rifle but hair fibers supposedly linked to Kopp all over the place. It was all there: planted evidence; unlikely killer; biased law enforcement. It all had echoes of the O. J. Simpson case. A lawyer of Cambria’s caliber would make hay with the inconsistencies.
The charge against Loretta Marra and Dennis Malvasi was upgraded from conspiracy to harbor a known fugitive to a more serious charge of obstruction of justice. In the summer of 2001 they applied to be released on bail. Their trial had been moved from Brooklyn, in the Eastern District of the State of New York, to Buffalo, in the Western District. Malvasi had a Buffalo courtappointed lawyer named Thomas Eoannou representing him. Marra retained a Long Island lawyer named Bruce Barket, who had defended pro-life clients in the past.
Barket was a stocky 42-year-old devout Catholic with dark hair and an olive complexion that reflected his LebaneseItalian heritage. He had once stopped practicing law to study for the priesthood, but returned to his job and made a considerable reputation defending the underdog. He won the New York State Association of Criminal Defense Lawyers Gideon Award, for representing people who could not afford to pay. Barket disdained the description “pro-life lawyer,” but he made no secret of his beliefs, or of the fact that he wanted to add the notion of protection of the fetus to the quilt of American civil rights.
Barket had fought some controversial cases. He continued to represent Amy Fisher, who had made headlines in 1992 as a 17-year-old high school student who had an affair with a married man and wound up shooting his wife in the head, nearly killing her. Dubbed the Long Island Lolita by the tabloids, Fisher pleaded guilty and was sentenced to 5 to 15 years in prison. In 1998, she claimed she had had a steamy affair with her first lawyer—prior to Barket taking over her defense—and that he had forced her into copping the plea to avoid the tryst being revealed. “What took place,” Barket said after becoming her lawyer, “is sad and despicable.” In 1999, Fisher launched a $220-million lawsuit against five corrections officers who she alleged had raped her. She later dropped the suit. The judge said that her lawsuit “read more like a cheap dime-store novel or a script for a tabloid television show than a pleading in a federal lawsuit.” Barket had earlier requested a new criminal trial for Fisher, claiming that the district attorney handling the case had made plea-bargain promises that were not kept. It would not be the last time that Bruce Barket argued that he had been misled by a prosecutor in a plea bargain.
Loretta Marra wrote a letter to the presiding judge, Richard Arcara, arguing for her release on bail. She said she was no flight risk. All of her friends were known to the FBI in any case, she had nowhere to go even if she wanted to, and two little boys she needed to care for, one of which she was still nursing at the time of her arrest.
“I don’t mind being incarcerated,” she wrote. “It has a lot in common with the monastic lifestyle, a lifestyle which holds tremendous appeal for me… If you set bail, I will never give you cause to regret it, I will not flee. I swear this to you on my salvation. As a completely convinced Catholic there is no more binding oath I could possibly conceive. I have hesitated for days to write this, so much does the oath terrify me to take it. I will die rather than break it. Thank you and God Bless You.”
The judge denied her bail.
In Buffalo Paul Cambria spoke to the media about his client’s continued fight against extradition from France to the United States for trial. “Ultimately,” Cambria said, “I want him back here, and he wants to come back here to fight these charges. But his French attorney has been telling him to keep fighting extradition.” Early in October, the French court rejected Kopp’s appeal. There was still one other appeal he could make, this time to the Superior Administrative Court in France. He filed that appeal, too. And then, several months later, he decided to abandon the fight.
In May 2002, Hervé Rouzaud–Le Boeuf spoke at a news conference in Rennes, saying that his client intended to prove his innocence upon his return to the United States, and viewed the trial as a chance to clear his name. Why did Jim Kopp give up the extradition fight? There may have been reasons only he understood, but he was perhaps motivated by what was happening to Loretta. Could he use his extradition as a bargaining chip to free her? It ate him up thinking of Loretta in jail, denied bail, two young boys at home who needed their mother. At one point in the extradition delay, he floated an idea to U.S. Justice Department officials. Kopp said he would agree to return to the United States while secretly giving his consent to leave the death penalty on the table—putting his own life at risk—if the Americans would in turn let Loretta walk free. Surely the feds would jump at the opportunity. Loretta was small potatoes, he thought, it’s Kopp they wanted on a gurney.
Was the suggestion genuine or was he playing another game?
Loretta, through Bruce Barket, urged Jim not to take such a drastic step. Was he that confident he would be acquitted of Bart Slepian’s murder? Or was he putting on an act to impress Loretta? Friends of Jim’s thought there was something else that may have prompted him to give up his extradition fight. An obituary had appeared in the St. Albans Messenger newspaper in February:
ST. ALBANS/FAIRFAX—Amy Lynn Boissonneault, 35, of St. Albans, formerly of Fairfax, died peacefully of breast cancer on Monday evening, Feb. 18, 2002, at her home in St. Albans in the presence of her family and friends. Amy was an avid traveler and made many trips and pilgrimages across North America and Europe to include Italy, France and Ireland. She also enjoyed art, poetry, writing letters, summer sunsets at the lake, snowstorms, gardening, Jane Austen movies and New York City. Amy will be remembered for the things she treasured most. Her strong faith in Jesus Christ, her love of the church and its saints and her family and friends. She enriched the lives of so many with her inner beauty and contagious smile. Her love of life and dedication to others were an inspiration to all who knew and loved her. Memorial contributions, in lieu of flowers, may be made in Amy’s memory to Good Counsel, Hoboken, N.J., or to the Franciscan Friars of the Renewal.