Jon Wells - Sniper - The True Story of Anti-Abortion Killer James Kopp

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.