“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 what 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?”
“Bruce has an understanding with Kathy Mehltretter. It just needs to be formalized, technicalities worked out. Jim, the government stands to benefit so much from your admission. And what’s the government going to do, stand up in court and try to tell a judge that your admission did not help their case? Bruce has this expression—he said that won’t pass ‘the straight face test.’”
Kopp said she was still in danger. She could be sacrificing her legal interests, and thus the interests of her family, by encouraging him to confess before trial.
“Jim, if I were not positive that your admission will release us, I would beg you to endure your own moral pain and speak after our case was done with.”
Jim Kopp finally had his opportunity to save Loretta. Everything changed after that. He confessed to the Buffalo News reporters, in Barket’s presence. He put it all out there, why he shot Dr. Slepian, how he did it. But Bruce Barket had made a big mistake. He did not yet have a deal finalized with the prosecution that a Kopp confession would automatically release Marra and Malvasi. The Buffalo News waited eight days before splashing “KOPP CONFESSES” on the front page. But Barket still had no signed deal from the prosecution.
James Kopp, Barket’s new client, had figuratively hung himself. And Loretta Marra, his other client, was still in jail with her husband, and would not get a walk as he had promised her. Barket was furious. He felt the Buffalo News had lied to him, thought he had an understanding that the News would wait even longer before running the story. But the newspaper countered that, in fact, Barket had been promised nothing about the publication timetable. News editors said they told Barket that they would need time to write and edit the story, which would give him a bit of time, but there was no deal on how long that would take. Barket had made a major miscalculation. And he knew it.